Photo: Renelibrary · CC BY-SA 4.0Household incomes in Kemp trail those of 80% of U.S. towns
Jobs and income earn Kemp C−; getting around on foot earns it B−. 25.2% of residents live below the poverty line, next to 13.8% for Texas as a whole. Only 1% work in Kemp itself; outside it, Dallas draws the most (16%, 40 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Kemp: the gist
Kemp’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Kemp is Dallas, 40 miles away as the crow flies. 16% of working residents (77) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
A big share show a job far from home
39% 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 ↓
Kemp workers spend longer getting to work
The average trip takes 36 minutes each way, against 27 across Texas. Over a year that’s about 276 hours of commuting, 69 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 477 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
The figures behind Kemp’s Jobs & income grade
Job access by car holds Kemp’s grade up (ahead of 48% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (2.7%) is left out: Kemp’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, Kemp could be anywhere from D to B.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Kemp
About 39% 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.
Each way, about 36 minutes from Kemp
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 11.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Kemp workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 333 commuters (the 16% 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.
Who commutes out of Kemp, and who commutes in
On a workday 471 residents head out to work, 6 work right here, and 322 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,300 people are in Kemp on a workday afternoon, 10% fewer than live here.
0.69 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Where the trip to work from Kemp ends
Where Kemp clocks in
14% 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.
What Kemp’s employers do
328 jobs are based in Kemp.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Kemp, 2013 → 2023: 251 → 328. 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 Kemp’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The commute in Kemp is mostly behind the wheel
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Kemp is more walkable than 50% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Kemp near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 395 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). 2.5% of Kemp households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Kemp’s commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 6,308 U.S. towns of 1,000 to 2,000, Kemp comes 4,694th on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 15 | Seis Lagos TX | 1,391 | $249K | 1.2% | 4.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 33 | Rollingwood TX | 1,466 | $240K | 4.6% | 2.4% | 3% | A+ |
| 34 | Oak Leaf TX | 1,684 | $132K | 2.8% | 5.5% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,692 | Warsaw KY | 1,757 | $61K | 24.6% | 6.8% | 12% | C− |
| 4,693 | West Carthage NY | 1,721 | $50K | 10.4% | 0.4% | 9% | C− |
| 4,694 | Kemp TX | 1,453 | $56K | 25.2% | 2.7% | 1% | C− |
| 4,695 | Odin Township IL | 1,526 | $58K | 15.1% | 3.2% | 3% | C− |
| 4,696 | Jefferson Township IN | 1,566 | $67K | 17.9% | 1.0% | 2% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 6,308 | 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 Kemp, 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 Kemp: questions
What is the median household income in Kemp?
$55,833 (±$21,245) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Kemp?
25.2%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Kemp?
36 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 16% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Kemp work?
1% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dallas (16%, 40 mi), Mabank (14%, 8 mi), Plano (5%, 52 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Kemp walkable?
Kemp is more walkable than 50% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 6.5 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Kemp without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 2% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Kemp, from the people who make the trip.
More of Kemp
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.