El Paso draws about half of Tornillo’s working residents
Measured by household income, Tornillo is behind 88% of U.S. towns. The two grades for Tornillo are D for jobs and income and D for walkability. At home: 5% of workers have no commute at all (Texas 14%).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Tornillo: the gist
The figures behind Tornillo’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Tornillo is better than 13% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Tornillo’s grade up (ahead of 53% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (32.2%, U.S. 12.5%).
Unemployment (6.6%) is left out: Tornillo’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, Tornillo could be anywhere from D to C+.
Where people from Tornillo work
Where Tornillo clocks in
49% of workers
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.
Who commutes out of Tornillo, and who commutes in
On a workday 393 residents head out to work, 23 work right here, and 209 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,200 people are in Tornillo on a workday afternoon, 14% fewer than live here.
0.56 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.
Tornillo is a services town
232 jobs are based in Tornillo.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Tornillo, 2013 → 2023: 282 → 232. 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 Tornillo’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 28 minutes to work from Tornillo
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Tornillo workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 513 commuters (the 5% 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.
Where in the region Tornillo works
About 18% 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.
Few in Tornillo walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Tornillo is more walkable than 6% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Tornillo 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 538 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). 2.8% of Tornillo households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Tornillo’s commuters take a bus or train.
Tornillo places 4,230th of 5,400 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 14 | Seis Lagos TX | 1,391 | $249K | 1.2% | 4.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 29 | Rollingwood TX | 1,466 | $240K | 4.6% | 2.4% | 3% | A+ |
| 30 | Oak Leaf TX | 1,684 | $132K | 2.8% | 5.5% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,228 | Spring Township PA | 1,629 | $59K | 14.9% | 1.5% | 10% | D |
| 4,229 | Rocky Point NC | 1,020 | $70K | 19.8% | 0.0% | 1% | D |
| 4,230 | Tornillo TX | 1,341 | $50K | 32.2% | 6.6% | 6% | D |
| 4,231 | Oblong IL | 1,352 | $58K | 13.9% | 3.3% | 13% | D |
| 4,232 | Van Buren Township IN | 1,779 | $55K | 23.9% | 11.2% | 3% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | 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 Tornillo, 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 Tornillo: questions
What is the median household income in Tornillo?
$50,119 (±$19,282) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Tornillo?
32.2%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Tornillo?
28 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Tornillo work?
6% work in town.
Is Tornillo walkable?
Tornillo is more walkable than 6% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 4.8 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Tornillo without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 3% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Tornillo, from the people who make the trip.
More of Tornillo
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.