President's House · Photo: Michael Barera · CC BY-SA 4.036% of Commerce’s residents are college students
About one in four work in Commerce itself; outside it, Greenville draws the most (10%, 15 miles). For jobs and income Commerce is better than 14% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 90% of U.S. towns (A). Family incomes here are lower than in 83% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Commerce: the gist
Commerce trades workers with the towns around it
Commerce has about as many jobs (4,261) as working residents (3,556), but they are mostly different people: 2,696 residents leave for work each day while 3,401 people come in. Only 20% of the jobs in Commerce are held by people who live here. Day and night ↓
A big share show a job far from home
44% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. How far ↓
Commutes from Commerce are quick
The average trip to work takes 20 minutes, against 27 across Texas. That’s about 54 hours a year less on the road than the typical Texas worker. Time on the road ↓
Many jobs in Commerce pay little
29% of the jobs based in Commerce pay $1,250 a month or less, under $15,000 a year. Young workers hold many of them: 32% of all the jobs here go to people 29 or younger. The jobs ↓
A young workforce
30% of Commerce’s working residents are 29 or younger. The jobs ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey.
Income, poverty and work: Commerce’s grade explained
Job access by car holds Commerce’s grade up (ahead of 39% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (19.8%, U.S. 11.9%).
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (15% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 19.8%, against 23.4% for all residents. Unemployment (6.5%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($68,171), since student households pull the household median down ($44,386).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Commerce could be anywhere from D to C+.
The daily flow of workers through Commerce
On a workday 2,696 residents head out to work, 860 work right here, and 3,401 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.20 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Near or far: the trip to work from Commerce
About 44% show a job over 50 miles away. Some of that is real, and some is employers that report every worker at a head office, so a few long commutes are on paper only.
Straight-line distance from each worker’s home block to their main job’s block. LEHD 2023.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Time on the road from Commerce: about 20 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Commerce workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 4,343 commuters (the 8% who work from home are left out). Across Texas: 83% drive alone, 1% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
What Commerce’s employers do
4,261 jobs are based in Commerce.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Commerce, 2013 → 2023: 4,371 → 4,261. Big swings can come from how a large employer reports its locations, not only from real openings or closings.
Primary jobs covered by unemployment insurance (not the self-employed). Pay is monthly earnings. LEHD 2023.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Commerce’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Where Commerce’s working residents head each day
Where Commerce clocks in
10% of workers
3% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Good to walk, short on transit: Commerce
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 17.3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.0% across Texas, on an EPA index of 8.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 4,707 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service: no data. EPA’s transit file has no stops for most of this county (its agencies had not published schedules in the format EPA used in 2020). That is missing data, not a finding that there is no bus or train.
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 11.4% of Commerce households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Commerce’s commuters take a bus or train.
Commerce and other U.S. towns of 6,900 to 13,400
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Des Peres MO | 9,102 | $224K | 2.0% | 0.5% | 5% | A+ |
| 2 | Beverly Hills MI | 10,449 | $177K | 1.7% | 1.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Ladue MO | 8,934 | $250K | 1.1% | 1.7% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 17 | Alamo Heights TX | 7,632 | $183K | 2.5% | 2.2% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 27 | Oak Point TX | 6,909 | $126K | 1.5% | 1.7% | 1% | A+ |
| 28 | Lucas TX | 8,896 | $221K | 1.3% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,526 | Mila Doce TX | 7,731 | $51K | 32.0% | 8.9% | 1% | D |
| 2,527 | Mexia TX | 7,091 | $42K | 32.3% | 3.3% | 24% | D |
| 2,528 | Commerce TX | 9,928 | $44K | 23.4% | 6.5% | 24% | D |
| 2,529 | Springfield VT | 8,881 | $67K | 14.8% | 8.2% | 32% | D |
| 2,530 | Delta CO | 9,802 | $45K | 20.5% | 3.7% | 28% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 2,792 | Shiprock NM | 7,610 | $36K | 34.6% | 14.9% | 14% | D− |
Census ACS 2020–24 (income, poverty, unemployment), Census LEHD (work in town), TownRatings Jobs & income grades. Each town links to its Work & commute page.
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Commerce, the top three, the last and three more from Texas.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs, where the employer reports them. Income, poverty, unemployment, commute time and how people travel: Census ACS 2020–24 averages.
- Students. 36% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Commerce: questions
What is the median household income in Commerce?
$44,386 (±$7,560) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Commerce?
23.4% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 19.8%. Texas: 13.8%.
How long is the commute from Commerce?
20 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Commerce work?
24% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Greenville (10%, 15 mi), Dallas (9%, 59 mi), Sulphur Springs (3%, 18 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Commerce walkable?
Commerce is more walkable than 90% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.3 out of 20, and 17% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Commerce without a car?
<1% of commuters take transit and 11% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Commerce, from the people who make the trip.
More of Commerce
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2023, primary jobs. Commute time, working from home and working out of state: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Distances are straight lines between home and work; real drives run longer. Walkability index, job access and transit service: U.S. EPA Smart Location Database. The two grades are our own summaries of these figures, not official ratings.