Photo: Michael Barera · CC BY-SA 4.0Kilgore draws 8,841 commuters a day, with 1.9 jobs for every working resident
Employers in Kilgore report 9,943 jobs, and 5,194 of its residents work somewhere. The two grades for Kilgore are B− for jobs and income and B− for walkability. For 6% of workers, the job is at home, next to 14% for Texas as a whole.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Kilgore, in brief
Kilgore is where the jobs are
Kilgore has 9,943 jobs, 1.9 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Kilgore and Longview trade workers both ways
Longview is the top workplace for Kilgore residents (21%) and also where the most people who work in Kilgore come from (14% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
Kilgore draws workers from far and wide
The 9,943 jobs in Kilgore are filled from a wide area. Kilgore’s own residents hold 11% and the ten next-biggest home towns 26%; the other 63% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
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 Kilgore earns its Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Kilgore is better than 45% of U.S. towns, #321 of 642 in Texas. Unemployment holds Kilgore’s grade up (3.3%, U.S. 5.2%); the poverty rate pulls it down (17.4%, U.S. 12.5%). It also does well on job access by car.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Kilgore could be anywhere from C− to B+.
The workday shuffle in and out of Kilgore
On a workday 4,092 residents head out to work and 1,102 work right here.
About 18,000 people are in Kilgore on a workday afternoon, 35% more 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.
Who travels to work in Kilgore, and from where
Where Kilgore clocks in
21% of workers
5% 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.
Factories, building and farms: 29% of the jobs in Kilgore
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Kilgore, 2013 → 2023: 11,736 → 9,943. 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 Kilgore’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Time on the road from Kilgore: about 24 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Kilgore workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 5,688 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.
Short hops and long hauls from Kilgore
About 30% 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.
Most of Kilgore commutes by car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Kilgore is more walkable than 51% of U.S. towns, #280 of 642 in Texas. Both inputs place Kilgore 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 6,028 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 Kilgore households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Kilgore’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 9,000 to 18,000, Kilgore ranks 1,667th of 2,526 on jobs and income
| # | 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 | New Albany OH | 11,803 | $238K | 1.4% | 0.9% | 11% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 8 | Trophy Club TX | 13,695 | $201K | 2.1% | 2.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 34 | Lantana TX | 12,766 | $199K | 0.6% | 2.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 78 | Bellaire TX | 17,434 | $244K | 2.4% | 3.7% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,665 | Haiku-Pauwela HI | 9,178 | $101K | 8.3% | 5.7% | 9% | B− |
| 1,666 | Southern Pines NC | 17,357 | $89K | 9.6% | 6.7% | 19% | B− |
| 1,667 | Kilgore TX | 13,531 | $66K | 17.4% | 3.3% | 21% | B− |
| 1,668 | Lake Park FL | 9,125 | $71K | 10.8% | 7.9% | 5% | B− |
| 1,669 | St. Ann MO | 12,617 | $52K | 13.0% | 4.9% | 2% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 2,526 | Douglas AZ | 16,038 | $42K | 27.8% | 12.3% | 29% | 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 Kilgore, 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 Kilgore: questions
What is the median household income in Kilgore?
$66,295 (±$9,837) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Kilgore?
17.4%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Kilgore?
24 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Kilgore work?
21% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Longview (21%, 10 mi), Tyler (5%, 27 mi), Dallas (3%, 114 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Kilgore walkable?
Kilgore is more walkable than 51% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 7.1 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Kilgore 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 Kilgore, from the people who make the trip.
More of Kilgore
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.