Photo: Joe Mabel (on Flickr as Joe Mabel from Seattle, US) · CC BY-SA 3.0College students make up 34% of Cheney’s residents
Transit is limited for a town this walkable: about 8.0 trips an hour stop near the typical resident at the evening peak, against 9.2 in Spokane. Jobs and income earn Cheney C; getting around on foot earns it A+. Working from home is the commute for 8% of workers, next to 20% for Washington as a whole.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Cheney, in brief
Cheney and Spokane trade workers both ways
Spokane is the top workplace for Cheney residents (31%) and also where the most people who work in Cheney come from (26% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
A young workforce
38% of Cheney’s working residents are 29 or younger, about one in three. The jobs ↓
Commutes from Cheney are quick
The average trip to work takes 21 minutes, against 27 across Washington. That’s about 46 hours a year less on the road than the typical Washington worker. Time on the road ↓
Nearly all the work in Cheney is services
88% of the jobs based here are in services, such as health care, schools and offices. Only 5% are in factories, building or farms. 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.
Jobs & income in Cheney: the grade in detail
On family income, poverty and job access, Cheney is better than 32% of U.S. towns, #234 of 285 in Washington. Job access by car holds Cheney’s grade up (ahead of 50% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (18.1%, U.S. 11.9%).
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (27% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 18.1%, against 31.3% for all residents. Unemployment (13.1%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($87,071), since student households pull the household median down ($54,503).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Cheney could be anywhere from D to B.
31% of working residents work in Spokane
Where Cheney clocks in
31% of workers
11% of workers
5% 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.
Services make up most of the work in Cheney
3,682 jobs are based in Cheney.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Cheney, 2013 → 2023: 3,347 → 3,682. 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 Cheney’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Getting to work from Cheney takes about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Cheney workers work from home, vs 20% across Washington. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 5,772 commuters (the 8% who work from home are left out). Across Washington: 79% drive alone, 4% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
How many people are in Cheney by day
On a workday 3,936 residents head out to work, 789 work right here, and 2,893 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (0.78 per resident).
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 many miles Cheney commutes
About 19% 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.
Cheney is more walkable than most U.S. towns, with limited transit
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Cheney is more walkable than 96% of U.S. towns, #21 of 285 in Washington. Both inputs place Cheney near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 6,294 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 94% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 57% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 8.0 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 91% 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). 7.5% of Cheney households have no vehicle (Washington 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 2% of Cheney’s commuters take a bus or train.
For jobs and income, Cheney is 1,817th of 2,354 U.S. towns of 9,000 to 17,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Des Peres MO | 9,102 | $224K | 2.0% | 0.5% | 5% | A+ |
| 2 | Beverly Hills MI | 10,449 | $177K | 1.7% | 1.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | New Albany OH | 11,803 | $238K | 1.4% | 0.9% | 11% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 46 | Maltby WA | 10,910 | $185K | 3.9% | 1.4% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 108 | Bothell East WA | 14,578 | $199K | 3.6% | 2.8% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 131 | Snoqualmie WA | 13,640 | $214K | 0.8% | 2.6% | 8% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,815 | Winchester TN | 10,438 | $63K | 13.5% | 4.4% | 25% | C |
| 1,816 | Mount Pleasant TX | 16,225 | $51K | 18.3% | 2.5% | 52% | C |
| 1,817 | Cheney WA | 12,650 | $55K | 31.3% | 13.1% | 17% | C |
| 1,818 | Middle Smithfield Township PA | 15,964 | $88K | 10.3% | 7.6% | 6% | C |
| 1,819 | Gardere LA | 12,223 | $55K | 35.3% | 4.9% | 1% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 2,354 | Douglas AZ | 16,038 | $42K | 27.8% | 12.3% | 29% | 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 Cheney, the top three, the last and three more from Washington.
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.
- Students. 34% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Cheney: questions
What is the median household income in Cheney?
$54,503 (±$9,297) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $98,141 across Washington and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Cheney?
31.3% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 18.1%. Washington: 9.9%.
How long is the commute from Cheney?
21 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Washington and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Cheney work?
17% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Spokane (31%, 14 mi), Spokane Valley (11%, 20 mi), Airway Heights (5%, 11 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Cheney walkable?
Cheney is more walkable than 96% of U.S. towns (Walkability A+): an EPA walkability index of 12.3 out of 20, and 13% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Cheney without a car?
2% of commuters take transit and 8% of households have no car. 57% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Cheney, from the people who make the trip.
More of Cheney
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.