Photo: Renelibrary · CC BY-SA 4.0Kerens has fewer jobs than working residents: 0.4 for each
306 jobs are based in Kerens, and 707 of its residents work somewhere. Jobs and income earn Kerens D; getting around on foot earns it B. For 4% of workers, the job is at home; Texas has 14%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The work figures that set Kerens apart
A big share show a job far from home
49% 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 ↓
Few Kerens workers work from home
Only 4% of workers work from home, against 14% across Texas. Almost everyone here travels to a job. 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 707 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
The four measures behind Kerens’ grade
On income, poverty and job access, Kerens is better than 13% of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Kerens’ grade.
Unemployment (4.8%) is left out: Kerens’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Kerens could be anywhere from D to C.
How far Kerens goes to work
About 49% 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.
About 28 minutes to work from Kerens
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Kerens workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 662 commuters (the 4% 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.
The workday shuffle in and out of Kerens
On a workday 632 residents head out to work, 75 work right here, and 231 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,100 people are in Kerens on a workday afternoon, 27% 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.
18% of working residents work in Corsicana
Where Kerens clocks in
4% 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 Kerens’ employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Kerens, 2013 → 2023: 341 → 306. 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 Kerens’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Driving is how Kerens gets around
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Kerens is more walkable than 64% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 4.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.0% across Texas, on an EPA index of 6.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 691 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). 5.7% of Kerens households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Kerens’ commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 5,397 U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,000, Kerens comes 4,213th 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 12 | Seis Lagos TX | 1,391 | $249K | 1.2% | 4.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 25 | Rollingwood TX | 1,466 | $240K | 4.6% | 2.4% | 3% | A+ |
| 26 | Oak Leaf TX | 1,684 | $132K | 2.8% | 5.5% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,211 | Sigourney IA | 1,951 | $58K | 14.8% | 8.3% | 18% | D |
| 4,212 | Thomas OK | 1,129 | $63K | 13.7% | 3.5% | 16% | D |
| 4,213 | Kerens TX | 1,508 | $57K | 16.3% | 4.8% | 11% | D |
| 4,214 | Scranton Township KS | 1,110 | $57K | 25.0% | 3.7% | 2% | D |
| 4,215 | Lamar Township MO | 1,434 | $57K | 14.7% | 0.0% | 3% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,397 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 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 Kerens, the top three, the last and three more from Texas.
Kerens and the towns next door
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Kerens workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kerens | – | D | B | 28 min | $56,771 |
| Goodlow | under 2% | — | — | 30 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Goodlow: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Kerens’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
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 Kerens: questions
What is the median household income in Kerens?
$56,771 (±$6,891) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Kerens?
16.3%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Kerens?
28 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Kerens work?
11% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Corsicana (18%, 14 mi), Dallas (9%, 56 mi), Fort Worth (4%, 79 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Kerens walkable?
Kerens is more walkable than 64% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 6.7 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Kerens without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Kerens, from the people who make the trip.
More of Kerens
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.