Photo: Djmaschek · CC BY-SA 3.0Fairchilds has fewer jobs than working residents: 0.1 for each
For 6% of workers, the job is at home; Texas has 14%. Employers in Fairchilds report 28 jobs, against 415 working residents. Jobs and income earn Fairchilds B−; getting around on foot earns it B−.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Fairchilds at work: what stands out
Fairchilds is a place people come home to
There are 28 jobs based in Fairchilds, about one for every ten working residents, so almost everyone works somewhere else. On a workday Fairchilds has about 670 people in it, 37% fewer than live here. Day and night ↓
One in three of Fairchilds works in Houston
135 working residents, 33%, have their main job in Houston, 34 miles away. That’s far more as work in Fairchilds itself. The commute map ↓
Fairchilds workers spend longer getting to work
The average trip takes 34 minutes each way, against 27 across Texas. Over a year that’s about 261 hours of commuting, 54 more than the state’s typical worker. Time on the road ↓
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; with 415 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Breaking down the Jobs & income grade for Fairchilds
On income, poverty and job access, Fairchilds is better than 52% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Fairchilds’ grade up (ahead of 82% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (13.9%, U.S. 12.5%).
Unemployment (6.7%) is left out: Fairchilds’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Fairchilds could be anywhere from C− to A+.
Fairchilds on a workday afternoon
On a workday 415 residents head out to work, none work right here, and 28 people come in from elsewhere.
About 670 people are in Fairchilds on a workday afternoon, 37% fewer than live here.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
33% of working residents work in Houston
Where Fairchilds clocks in
33% 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.
Each way, about 34 minutes from Fairchilds
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 10.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fairchilds workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 348 commuters (the 6% 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.
Goods, not services: 43% of the jobs in Fairchilds
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fairchilds, 2013 → 2023: 25 → 28. 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 Fairchilds’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The distance from Fairchilds to work
About 15% 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.
Few in Fairchilds walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Fairchilds is more walkable than 55% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 6.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.0% across Texas, on an EPA index of 5.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 371 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 0.3% of Fairchilds households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Fairchilds’ commuters take a bus or train.
947th of 3,133: where Fairchilds ranks among U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 9 | Seis Lagos TX | 1,391 | $249K | 1.2% | 4.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 32 | Weston TX | 1,140 | $144K | 2.8% | 0.7% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 36 | Randolph AFB TX | 1,240 | $113K | 2.8% | 3.6% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 945 | Buckeye Township IL | 1,170 | $76K | 7.1% | 4.3% | 3% | B− |
| 946 | Grand Meadow MN | 1,159 | $72K | 4.3% | 0.7% | 8% | B− |
| 947 | Fairchilds TX | 1,060 | $69K | 13.9% | 6.7% | 0% | B− |
| 948 | Petersburgh NY | 1,369 | $78K | 5.0% | 3.6% | 11% | B− |
| 949 | Washington Township PA | 1,311 | $100K | 7.6% | 4.3% | 2% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 3,133 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 0% | 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 Fairchilds, 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.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Fairchilds: questions
What is the median household income in Fairchilds?
$69,286 (±$41,708) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fairchilds?
13.9%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fairchilds?
34 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fairchilds work?
0% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Houston (33%, 34 mi), Rosenberg (10%, 8 mi), Sugar Land (8%, 14 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Fairchilds walkable?
Fairchilds is more walkable than 55% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 5.3 out of 20, and 6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fairchilds without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and <1% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fairchilds, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fairchilds
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.