First National Bank Building · Photo: Michael Barera · CC BY-SA 4.028% of Stephenville’s residents are college students
Home is the office for 4% of workers, next to 14% for Texas as a whole. The two grades for Stephenville are C+ for jobs and income and A for walkability. About one in three stay in Stephenville for work; outside it, Fort Worth is the main destination (6%, 64 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Stephenville at work: what stands out
Commutes from Stephenville are quick
The average trip to work takes 16 minutes, against 27 across Texas. That’s about 84 hours a year less on the road than the typical Texas worker. Time on the road ↓
A big share show a job far from home
47% 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 ↓
Stephenville draws workers from far and wide
The 11,584 jobs in Stephenville are filled from a wide area. Stephenville’s own residents hold 26% and the ten next-biggest home towns 12%; the other 62% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
A young workforce
32% of Stephenville’s working residents are 29 or younger. The jobs ↓
Few Stephenville 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.
Income, poverty and work: Stephenville’s grade explained
On family income, poverty and job access, Stephenville is better than 35% of U.S. towns, #383 of 642 in Texas. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Stephenville’s grade.
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (18% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 12.2%, against 20.0% for all residents. Unemployment (7.3%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($85,787), since student households pull the household median down ($53,015).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Stephenville could be anywhere from C− to B−.
About 16 minutes each way for Stephenville’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Stephenville workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 10,509 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.
Half of Stephenville commutes less than 38 miles
About 47% 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.
The places Stephenville commutes to
Where Stephenville clocks in
6% of workers
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.
Jobs in Stephenville: what the 11,584 are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Stephenville, 2013 → 2023: 10,564 → 11,584. 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 Stephenville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who works in Stephenville, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 5,918 residents head out to work, 3,034 work right here, and 8,550 people come in from elsewhere.
About 24,000 people are in Stephenville on a workday afternoon, 12% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.29 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.
Good to walk, short on transit: Stephenville
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Stephenville is more walkable than 89% of U.S. towns, #16 of 642 in Texas. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 9.5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.0% across Texas, on an EPA index of 8.6.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 10,951 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). 5.9% of Stephenville households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Stephenville’s commuters take a bus or train.
Stephenville next to U.S. towns of 15,000 to 29,000: 1,385th of 1,787 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rogers MN | 15,606 | $159K | 1.9% | 1.2% | 10% | A+ |
| 2 | West Springfield VA | 22,532 | $163K | 1.9% | 1.7% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Wolf Trap VA | 15,858 | $250K | 3.1% | 2.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 14 | Colleyville TX | 25,727 | $218K | 2.5% | 3.0% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 18 | Corinth TX | 25,297 | $121K | 3.5% | 1.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 42 | Bellaire TX | 17,434 | $244K | 2.4% | 3.7% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,383 | Candler-McAfee GA | 20,905 | $65K | 14.7% | 12.2% | 1% | C+ |
| 1,384 | Riverside OH | 24,706 | $61K | 15.3% | 6.6% | 4% | C+ |
| 1,385 | Stephenville TX | 21,793 | $53K | 20.0% | 7.3% | 34% | C+ |
| 1,386 | Zion IL | 24,447 | $63K | 16.0% | 6.7% | 6% | C+ |
| 1,387 | Loves Park IL | 23,712 | $62K | 14.4% | 6.3% | 12% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,787 | 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 Stephenville, 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.
- Students. 28% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Stephenville: questions
What is the median household income in Stephenville?
$53,015 (±$7,404) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Stephenville?
20.0% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 12.2%. Texas: 13.8%.
How long is the commute from Stephenville?
16 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Stephenville work?
34% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Fort Worth (6%, 64 mi), Dallas (4%, 94 mi), Abilene (3%, 90 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Stephenville walkable?
Stephenville is more walkable than 89% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.6 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Stephenville without a car?
<1% 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 Stephenville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Stephenville
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.