Blairs has 0.4 jobs for every working resident, so most commute out
Household incomes here are lower than in 88% of U.S. towns. Employers in Blairs report 142 jobs; 348 of its residents have a job. For jobs and income Blairs is better than 32% of U.S. towns (C); for walkability it is more walkable than 7% of U.S. towns (D).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Blairs: the figures worth knowing
Inside Blairs’ Jobs & income grade
The poverty rate holds Blairs’ grade up (8.8%, U.S. 12.5%); household income pulls it down ($49,818, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (0.0%) is left out: Blairs’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, Blairs could be anywhere from D to B+.
39% of working residents work in Danville
Where Blairs clocks in
39% of workers
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.
Blairs by day and by night
On a workday 345 residents head out to work, 3 work right here, and 139 people come in from elsewhere.
About 860 people are in Blairs on a workday afternoon, 19% 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 2023, primary jobs.
The kinds of work in Blairs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Blairs, 2013 → 2023: 206 → 142. 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 Blairs’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 28 minutes to work from Blairs
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Blairs workers work from home, vs 18% across Virginia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 333 commuters (the 9% who work from home are left out). Across Virginia: 83% drive alone, 3% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Near or far: the trip to work from Blairs
About 21% 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.
Driving is how Blairs gets around
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 367 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). 4.9% of Blairs households have no vehicle (Virginia 6.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Blairs’ commuters take a bus or train.
How Blairs ranks: 1,648th of 3,133 U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400
| # | 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 | Occoquan VA | 1,078 | $134K | 2.1% | 5.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 110 | Kincora VA | 1,008 | $134K | 8.8% | 6.3% | 0% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 178 | Ruckersville VA | 1,399 | $102K | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 1,646 | Sheridan Township KS | 1,305 | $57K | 7.0% | 4.1% | 2% | C |
| 1,647 | South Bristol ME | 1,137 | $69K | 7.6% | 3.8% | 16% | C |
| 1,648 | Blairs VA | 1,062 | $50K | 8.8% | 0.0% | 1% | C |
| 1,649 | Hogan Township IN | 1,152 | $76K | 11.2% | 0.0% | 3% | C |
| 1,650 | Rice Township OH | 1,237 | $72K | 17.0% | 4.4% | 1% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 3,133 | 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 Blairs, the top three, the last and three more from Virginia.
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 Blairs: questions
What is the median household income in Blairs?
$49,818 (±$18,151) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $93,170 across Virginia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Blairs?
8.8%, against 9.9% across Virginia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Blairs?
28 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Virginia and 26 nationally. 9% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Blairs work?
1% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Danville (39%, 8 mi), Chatham (8%, 8 mi), Lynchburg (3%, 49 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Blairs walkable?
Blairs is more walkable than 7% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 5.0 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Blairs without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Blairs, from the people who make the trip.
More of Blairs
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.