Photo: Billy Hathorn · CC BY-SA 3.0Shamrock has lower household incomes than 91% of U.S. towns
At home: 3% of workers have no commute at all (Texas 14%). Poverty touches 19.3% of residents, where Texas as a whole has 13.8%. Jobs and income earn Shamrock D−; getting around on foot earns it C+.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Shamrock: the gist
Shamrock’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Shamrock is Amarillo, 89 miles away as the crow flies. 8% of working residents (51) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
Shamrock is where the jobs are
Shamrock has 976 jobs, 1.5 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
A big share show a job far from home
33% 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 ↓
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 649 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Breaking down the Jobs & income grade for Shamrock
All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Shamrock’s grade.
Unemployment (5.7%) is left out: Shamrock’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, Shamrock could be anywhere from D− to C−.
Miles to work from Shamrock
About 33% 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.
Shamrock fills up on a workday
On a workday 448 residents head out to work, 201 work right here, and 775 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,000 people are in Shamrock on a workday afternoon, 19% more than live here.
1.5 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than 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.
The towns that send workers to Shamrock
Where Shamrock clocks in
8% 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.
Inside Shamrock’s 976 jobs
976 jobs are based in Shamrock.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Shamrock, 2013 → 2023: 1,455 → 976. 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 Shamrock’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting from Shamrock: about 29 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Shamrock workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 788 commuters (the 3% 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.
For most of Shamrock, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Shamrock is more walkable than 39% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 0.9% 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 813 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). 13.6% of Shamrock households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Shamrock’s commuters take a bus or train.
Shamrock next to U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,300
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 2% | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,460 | Jefferson NC | 1,680 | $41K | 22.9% | 2.5% | 16% | D− |
| 5,461 | Biscoe NC | 1,887 | $45K | 34.9% | 3.1% | 9% | D− |
| 5,462 | Shamrock TX | 1,692 | $47K | 19.3% | 5.7% | 31% | D− |
| 5,463 | McCamey TX | 1,743 | $43K | 17.1% | 1.2% | 18% | D− |
| 5,464 | Corrigan TX | 1,358 | $38K | 30.6% | 16.7% | 19% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,760 | 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 Shamrock, 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 Shamrock: questions
What is the median household income in Shamrock?
$46,912 (±$20,377) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Shamrock?
19.3%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Shamrock?
29 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 3% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Shamrock work?
31% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Amarillo (8%, 89 mi), Wheeler (7%, 16 mi), Lubbock (2%, 148 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Shamrock walkable?
Shamrock is more walkable than 39% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 7.3 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Shamrock without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 14% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Shamrock, from the people who make the trip.
More of Shamrock
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.