Photo: Mojo Hand · CC BY-SA 4.0Chatham draws 3,132 commuters a day, with 7.0 jobs for every working resident
Chatham has 3,212 jobs, against 460 working residents. The two grades for Chatham are C+ for jobs and income and A− for walkability. For 4% of workers, the job is at home, against 18% across Virginia.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Chatham, in a few figures
Chatham fills up on a workday
Chatham has 3,212 jobs, 7.0 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 3,900 people are in town, 3 times the 1,200 who live here. Day and night ↓
Jobs in Chatham have more than doubled in ten years
Jobs based in Chatham went from 1,420 in 2013 to 3,212 in 2023, +126%. The jobs ↓
Chatham and Danville trade workers both ways
Danville is the top workplace for Chatham residents (19%) and also where the most people who work in Chatham come from (12% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
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 460 working residents, small shifts move the shares; a jump in jobs can partly be a big employer changing how it reports its locations.
Why Chatham gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty and job access, Chatham is better than 39% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Chatham’s grade up (7.8%, U.S. 12.5%); household income pulls it down ($58,661, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (3.3%) is left out: Chatham’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, Chatham could be anywhere from C− to B+.
How many people are in Chatham by day
On a workday 380 residents head out to work and 80 work right here.
About 3,900 people are in Chatham on a workday afternoon, 231% more 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.
In Chatham, services account for most jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Chatham, 2013 → 2023: 1,420 → 3,212. 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 Chatham’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Where Chatham’s workforce comes from
Where Chatham clocks in
19% 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.
Time on the road from Chatham: about 18 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Chatham workers work from home, vs 18% across Virginia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 544 commuters (the 4% 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.
Chatham’s commute, mile by mile
About 25% 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.
Walkable streets, thin transit: Chatham
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Chatham is more walkable than 75% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 5.5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.7% across Virginia, on an EPA index of 7.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 569 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). 3.7% of Chatham households have no vehicle (Virginia 6.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Chatham’s commuters take a bus or train.
Chatham is 1,948th of 4,312 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,600 on jobs and income
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 11 | Great Falls Crossing VA | 1,414 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.7% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 18 | Occoquan VA | 1,078 | $134K | 2.1% | 5.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 167 | Kincora VA | 1,008 | $134K | 8.8% | 6.3% | 0% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 1,946 | Millbrook NY | 1,442 | $74K | 12.6% | 2.7% | 12% | C+ |
| 1,947 | Chico TX | 1,116 | $76K | 10.5% | 14.7% | 2% | C+ |
| 1,948 | Chatham VA | 1,191 | $59K | 7.8% | 3.3% | 17% | C+ |
| 1,949 | Nashua IA | 1,505 | $67K | 7.3% | 2.2% | 11% | C+ |
| 1,950 | Minco OK | 1,580 | $61K | 11.3% | 4.8% | 13% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,312 | 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 Chatham, 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 Chatham: questions
What is the median household income in Chatham?
$58,661 (±$13,725) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $93,170 across Virginia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Chatham?
7.8%, against 9.9% across Virginia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Chatham?
18 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Virginia and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Chatham work?
17% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Danville (19%, 16 mi), Greensboro (3%, 55 mi), Lynchburg (3%, 42 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Chatham walkable?
Chatham is more walkable than 75% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.5 out of 20, and 6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Chatham without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Chatham, from the people who make the trip.
More of Chatham
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.