Photo: Billy Hathorn · CC BY-SA 3.0Households in Waskom have lower incomes than those in 80% of U.S. towns
Home is the office for 5% of workers, next to 14% for Texas as a whole. 17.1% of residents are in poverty, against 13.8% across Texas. The two grades for Waskom are C for jobs and income and C− for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Waskom in brief
A big share show a job far from home
43% 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 ↓
Waskom makes and builds things
50% of the jobs based in Waskom are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Waskom residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 22%. The jobs ↓
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 576 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Why Waskom gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty and job access, Waskom is better than 26% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Waskom’s grade up (ahead of 59% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($55,781, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (3.8%) is left out: Waskom’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, Waskom could be anywhere from D to B.
Miles to work from Waskom
About 43% 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.
Goods, not services: 50% of the jobs in Waskom
475 jobs are based in Waskom.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Waskom, 2013 → 2023: 573 → 475. 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 Waskom’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The workday shuffle in and out of Waskom
On a workday 526 residents head out to work, 50 work right here, and 425 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (0.82 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.
The places Waskom commutes to
Where Waskom clocks in
7% 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.
About 27 minutes each way for Waskom’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Waskom workers work from home, vs 14% across Texas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 770 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.
For most of Waskom, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Waskom is more walkable than 19% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any 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). 15.2% of Waskom households have no vehicle (Texas 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Waskom’s commuters take a bus or train.
Waskom next to U.S. towns of 1,400 to 2,700: 3,649th of 5,509 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 21 | Rollingwood TX | 1,466 | $240K | 4.6% | 2.4% | 3% | A+ |
| 22 | Oak Leaf TX | 1,684 | $132K | 2.8% | 5.5% | <1% | A+ |
| 23 | Serenada TX | 1,444 | $155K | 1.5% | 2.6% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,647 | West Buechel KY | 1,402 | $49K | 18.8% | 7.5% | 2% | C |
| 3,648 | Greene NY | 1,420 | $57K | 10.3% | 6.1% | 20% | C |
| 3,649 | Waskom TX | 1,980 | $56K | 17.1% | 3.8% | 9% | C |
| 3,650 | Lovington Township IL | 1,515 | $60K | 9.9% | 1.6% | 2% | C |
| 3,651 | Deer Creek Township MO | 2,464 | $72K | 9.1% | 9.5% | 11% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 5,509 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Waskom, 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 Waskom: questions
What is the median household income in Waskom?
$55,781 (±$21,810) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $78,476 across Texas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Waskom?
17.1%, against 13.8% across Texas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Waskom?
27 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Texas and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Waskom work?
9% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Marshall (14%, 17 mi), Longview (7%, 41 mi), Tyler (4%, 73 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Waskom walkable?
Waskom is more walkable than 19% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 6.6 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Waskom without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 15% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Waskom, from the people who make the trip.
More of Waskom
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.