Shack Mountain · Public domainRio draws 3,087 commuters a day, with 4.0 jobs for every working resident
Rio has 3,123 jobs, and 774 of its residents work somewhere. Jobs and income earn Rio C; getting around on foot earns it A. Measured by household income, Rio is behind 80% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Rio: the gist
Rio fills up on a workday
Rio has 3,123 jobs, 4.0 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 3,600 people are in town, more than double the 1,300 who live here. Day and night ↓
Most Rio residents work close to home
64% of working residents have their main job less than 10 miles from home, about two in three. How far ↓
28% of Rio works in Charlottesville
219 working residents, 28%, have their main job in Charlottesville, 3 miles away. That’s 6 times as many as work in Rio itself. 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 774 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Income, poverty and work: Rio’s grade explained
On income, poverty and job access, Rio is better than 27% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Rio’s grade up (ahead of 71% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (22.2%, U.S. 12.5%).
Unemployment (8.0%) is left out: Rio’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, Rio could be anywhere from C− to B.
Rio on a workday afternoon
On a workday 738 residents head out to work and 36 work right here.
About 3,600 people are in Rio on a workday afternoon, 188% 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.
How far Rio goes to work
About 24% 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.
The daily trip into Rio
Where Rio clocks in
28% 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.
What Rio’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Rio, 2013 → 2023: 2,948 → 3,123. 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 Rio’s own residents hold wherever they work.
From Rio, about 21 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Rio workers work from home, vs 18% across Virginia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 638 commuters (the 11% 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.
Rio is more walkable than 95% of U.S. towns
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 717 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 45% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 45% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 15.2 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 96% 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). 24.4% of Rio households have no vehicle (Virginia 6.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 7% of Rio’s commuters take a bus or train.
Rio places 2,909th 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% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 12 | Great Falls Crossing VA | 1,414 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.7% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 19 | Occoquan VA | 1,078 | $134K | 2.1% | 5.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 158 | Haymarket VA | 1,602 | $174K | 3.2% | 4.0% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 2,907 | Old River-Winfree TX | 1,495 | $72K | 25.8% | 8.5% | 0% | C |
| 2,908 | Plainfield VT | 1,218 | $69K | 11.6% | 0.5% | 7% | C |
| 2,909 | Rio VA | 1,252 | $56K | 22.2% | 8.0% | 5% | C |
| 2,910 | Freeland WA | 1,548 | $83K | 12.1% | 6.5% | 7% | C |
| 2,911 | Valley Falls KS | 1,055 | $47K | 5.9% | 1.8% | 9% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | 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 Rio, 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 Rio: questions
What is the median household income in Rio?
$56,250 (±$22,698) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $93,170 across Virginia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Rio?
22.2%, against 9.9% across Virginia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Rio?
21 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Virginia and 26 nationally. 11% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Rio work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Charlottesville (28%, 3 mi), University of Virginia (9%, 4 mi), Pantops (5%, 4 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Rio walkable?
Rio is more walkable than 95% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 12.1 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Rio without a car?
7% of commuters take transit and 24% of households have no car. 45% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Rio, from the people who make the trip.
More of Rio
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.