Wolf Creek Bridge · Photo: Skye Marthaler · CC BY-SA 3.0Rocky Gap has 10.1 jobs for every working resident: 365 people commute in to work
Hardly any work in Rocky Gap itself; outside it, Bland draws the most (17%, 10 miles). Employers in Rocky Gap report 365 jobs for 36 working residents. Home is the office for 0% of workers, next to 18% for Virginia as a whole.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Rocky Gap by day and by night
On a workday 36 residents head out to work and none work right here.
About 340 people are in Rocky Gap on a workday afternoon, 4700% 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.
The towns that send workers to Rocky Gap
Where Rocky Gap clocks in
17% of workers
14% 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.
Health, schools and offices: most of the jobs in Rocky Gap
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
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 Rocky Gap’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Working from home in Rocky Gap
of Rocky Gap workers work from home, vs 18% across Virginia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 7 commuters (the 0% 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.
Rocky Gap’s commute, mile by mile
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.
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.
- Two counts of out-of-state work. The Census survey asks workers where they work: 0% of Rocky Gap workers work outside Virginia. The job records count 14% at employers in other states. The records use the address the employer reports and skip the self-employed, so the two can differ.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Rocky Gap: questions
What is the poverty rate in Rocky Gap?
0.0%, against 9.9% across Virginia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
Where do people who live in Rocky Gap work?
0% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Bland (17%, 10 mi), Wytheville (14%, 20 mi), Beech Mountain (3%, 83 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Can you get around Rocky Gap without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 0% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Rocky Gap, from the people who make the trip.
More of Rocky Gap
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.