Photo: Renelibrary · CC BY-SA 4.0Most of Valley Mills commutes out: there are 0.5 jobs for every working resident
345 jobs are based in Valley Mills for 706 working residents. The two grades for Valley Mills are C for jobs and income and B for walkability. Measured by household income, Valley Mills is behind 86% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Valley Mills
A big share show a job far from home
44% 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 ↓
Valley Mills and Waco trade workers both ways
Waco is the top workplace for Valley Mills residents (24%) and also where the most people who work in Valley Mills come from (13% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
Few Valley Mills 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 2024, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 706 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Income, poverty and work: Valley Mills’ grade explained
On income, poverty and job access, Valley Mills is better than 26% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Valley Mills’ grade up (ahead of 47% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($51,607, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (1.9%) is left out: Valley Mills’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Valley Mills could be anywhere from D to B+.
The commute from Valley Mills, by distance
About 44% 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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
24% of working residents work in Waco
Where Valley Mills clocks in
5% 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.
Valley Mills’ commute takes about 28 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Valley Mills workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 511 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.
Valley Mills on a workday afternoon
On a workday 681 residents head out to work, 25 work right here, and 320 people come in from elsewhere.
About 930 people are in Valley Mills on a workday afternoon, 28% 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 2024, primary jobs.
The kinds of work in Valley Mills
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Valley Mills, 2014 → 2024: 235 → 345. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Valley Mills’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Few in Valley Mills walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Valley Mills is more walkable than 55% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 0.8% 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 530 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). 0.2% of Valley Mills households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Valley Mills’ commuters take a bus or train.
Valley Mills places 2,966th of 4,866 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 900 to 1,700
| # | 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% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 11 | Seis Lagos TX | 1,391 | $249K | 1.2% | 4.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 26 | Rollingwood TX | 1,466 | $240K | 4.6% | 2.4% | 4% | A+ |
| 27 | Oak Leaf TX | 1,684 | $132K | 2.8% | 5.5% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,964 | Craig AK | 1,062 | $68K | 7.9% | 4.6% | — | C |
| 2,965 | Wyoming IL | 1,287 | $60K | 11.8% | 2.4% | 8% | C |
| 2,966 | Valley Mills TX | 1,293 | $52K | 12.0% | 1.9% | 4% | C |
| 2,967 | George WA | 1,024 | $55K | 6.0% | 4.5% | 5% | C |
| 2,968 | Wakefield NE | 1,527 | $57K | 7.5% | 3.9% | 26% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Valley Mills, 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 2024, 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 Valley Mills: questions
What is the median household income in Valley Mills?
$51,607 (±$35,713) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Valley Mills?
12.0%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Valley Mills?
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 Valley Mills work?
4% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Waco (24%, 18 mi), Fort Worth (5%, 78 mi), Clifton (5%, 11 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Valley Mills walkable?
Valley Mills is more walkable than 55% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 9.5 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Valley Mills without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and <1% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Valley Mills, from the people who make the trip.
More of Valley Mills
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.