Photo: MarmadukePercy · CC BY-SA 3.0Rocky Mount draws 7,117 commuters a day, with 3.9 jobs for every working resident
Jobs and income earn Rocky Mount C+; getting around on foot earns it B. Employers in Rocky Mount report 7,687 jobs for 1,948 working residents. 10% of workers work from home, 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
Jobs and commuting in Rocky Mount: the gist
Rocky Mount fills up on a workday
Rocky Mount has 7,687 jobs, 4.0 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 11,000 people are in town, more than double the 5,000 who live here. Day and night ↓
Rocky Mount draws workers from far and wide
The 7,687 jobs in Rocky Mount are filled from a wide area. Rocky Mount’s own residents hold 7% and the ten next-biggest home towns 17%; the other 76% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
Rocky Mount makes and builds things
36% of the jobs based in Rocky Mount are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Rocky Mount residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 25%. 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.
How Rocky Mount earns its Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Rocky Mount is better than 40% of U.S. towns, #193 of 253 in Virginia. Unemployment holds Rocky Mount’s grade up (2.8%, U.S. 5.2%); the poverty rate pulls it down (18.6%, U.S. 12.5%). It also does well on job access by car.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Rocky Mount could be anywhere from C− to B.
A workday in Rocky Mount: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 1,378 residents head out to work and 570 work right here.
About 11,000 people are in Rocky Mount on a workday afternoon, 115% 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 daily trip into Rocky Mount
Where Rocky Mount clocks in
16% 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.
Goods jobs make up 36% of work in Rocky Mount
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Rocky Mount, 2013 → 2023: 8,227 → 7,687. 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 Rocky Mount’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How long Rocky Mount spends getting to work: about 26 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Rocky Mount workers work from home, vs 18% across Virginia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,980 commuters (the 10% 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.
Where in the region Rocky Mount works
About 15% 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.
In Rocky Mount, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Rocky Mount is more walkable than 56% of U.S. towns, #177 of 253 in Virginia. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 1.4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 5.7% across Virginia.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 2,195 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 26% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 0.9 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 57% 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). 6.4% of Rocky Mount households have no vehicle (Virginia 6.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Rocky Mount’s commuters take a bus or train.
Rocky Mount is 2,339th of 3,692 U.S. towns of 3,500 to 6,700 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riverwoods IL | 3,766 | $249K | 0.7% | 0.7% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Mission Hills KS | 3,522 | $250K | 1.2% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 9 | Pimmit Hills VA | 6,589 | $173K | 1.6% | 1.3% | 3% | A+ |
| 10 | Braddock VA | 6,536 | $212K | 0.9% | 1.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 25 | South Run VA | 6,600 | $250K | 2.1% | 1.5% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,337 | Randleman NC | 4,767 | $53K | 32.6% | 2.3% | 8% | C+ |
| 2,338 | New Brighton PA | 5,503 | $53K | 16.1% | 3.7% | 6% | C+ |
| 2,339 | Rocky Mount VA | 4,973 | $63K | 18.6% | 2.8% | 29% | C+ |
| 2,340 | Pembroke Park FL | 6,425 | $53K | 26.8% | 3.9% | 1% | C+ |
| 2,341 | Dwight IL | 4,005 | $71K | 11.7% | 4.5% | 22% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,692 | Lake Isabella CA | 4,059 | $27K | 40.7% | 8.6% | 18% | 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 Rocky Mount, the top three, the last and three more from Virginia.
The towns around Rocky Mount
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Rocky Mount workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocky Mount | – | C+ | B | 26 min | $63,280 |
| Henry Fork | under 2% | — | — | 31 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Henry Fork: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Rocky Mount’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
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 Rocky Mount: questions
What is the median household income in Rocky Mount?
$63,280 (±$6,006) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $93,170 across Virginia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Rocky Mount?
18.6%, against 9.9% across Virginia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Rocky Mount?
26 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Virginia and 26 nationally. 10% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Rocky Mount work?
29% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Roanoke (16%, 19 mi), Salem (4%, 22 mi), Hollins (2%, 24 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Rocky Mount walkable?
Rocky Mount is more walkable than 56% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 8.3 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Rocky Mount without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Rocky Mount, from the people who make the trip.
More of Rocky Mount
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.