Photo: Michael Barera · CC BY-SA 4.0More people are out of work in Greenville (5.7%) than in 71% of U.S. towns
Greenville grades C+ for jobs and income and B for walkability. For 7% of workers, the job is at home, against 14% across Texas. About one in four stay in Greenville for work; outside it, Dallas is the main destination (10%, 44 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Greenville in brief
Greenville’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Greenville is Dallas, 44 miles away as the crow flies. 10% of working residents (1,277) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Greenville draws workers from far and wide
The 18,373 jobs in Greenville are filled from a wide area. Greenville’s own residents hold 20% and the ten next-biggest home towns 17%; the other 63% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
Greenville makes and builds things
39% of the jobs based in Greenville are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Greenville residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 25%. 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.
How Greenville earns its Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Greenville is better than 37% of U.S. towns, #371 of 642 in Texas. Job access by car holds Greenville’s grade up (ahead of 61% of U.S. towns); unemployment pulls it down.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Greenville could be anywhere from C− to B−.
The distance from Greenville to work
About 22% 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.
Commuting out of Greenville: the destinations
Where Greenville clocks in
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.
A place that makes things: 39% of Greenville’s jobs are in goods
18,373 jobs are based in Greenville.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Greenville, 2013 → 2023: 16,236 → 18,373. 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 Greenville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who leaves Greenville for work, and who comes in
On a workday 9,576 residents head out to work, 3,653 work right here, and 14,720 people come in from elsewhere.
About 42,000 people are in Greenville on a workday afternoon, 14% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.39 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.
Greenville’s commute takes about 25 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Greenville workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 12,896 commuters (the 7% 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.
Greenville is a driving town
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Greenville is more walkable than 59% of U.S. towns, #203 of 642 in Texas. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 2.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 3.0% across Texas.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 13,831 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). 5.0% of Greenville households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Greenville’s commuters take a bus or train.
Greenville is 945th of 1,162 U.S. towns of 26,000 to 50,000 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Upper Dublin Township PA | 27,258 | $168K | 3.2% | 1.9% | 8% | A+ |
| 2 | McLean VA | 49,627 | $250K | 2.9% | 2.3% | 6% | A+ |
| 3 | Southlake TX | 31,175 | $250K | 1.5% | 2.7% | 11% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 11 | Keller TX | 46,078 | $175K | 3.4% | 2.7% | 7% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 33 | Coppell TX | 41,386 | $146K | 5.4% | 2.6% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 943 | Dalton GA | 35,322 | $64K | 18.6% | 4.3% | 38% | C+ |
| 944 | Athens Township OH | 31,531 | $49K | 33.0% | 7.8% | 36% | C+ |
| 945 | Greenville TX | 37,069 | $63K | 11.5% | 5.7% | 28% | C+ |
| 946 | Channelview TX | 43,605 | $64K | 20.3% | 6.9% | 6% | C+ |
| 947 | Ceres CA | 48,982 | $79K | 15.9% | 10.2% | 12% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,162 | Bullhead City AZ | 43,987 | $51K | 18.7% | 11.5% | 26% | 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 Greenville, 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 Greenville: questions
What is the median household income in Greenville?
$62,781 (±$4,894) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Greenville?
11.5%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Greenville?
25 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Greenville work?
28% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dallas (10%, 44 mi), Rockwall (3%, 23 mi), Plano (3%, 37 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Greenville walkable?
Greenville is more walkable than 59% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 7.8 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Greenville without a car?
<1% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Greenville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Greenville
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.