Photo: User:MrX · CC BY-SA 3.0Kittitas has 0.6 jobs for every working resident, so most commute out
Jobs & income C: better than 31% of U.S. towns on income, poverty and job access.
Walkability C+: more walkable than 40% of U.S. towns.
Household incomes here are higher than in 56% of U.S. towns. Working residents average 28 minutes each way (Washington 27, U.S. 26). Only 4% work in Kittitas; the top destination outside it is Ellensburg (35%, 6 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work and commuting in Kittitas, in brief
Kittitas and Ellensburg trade workers both ways
Ellensburg is the top workplace for Kittitas residents (35%) and also where the most people who work in Kittitas come from (17% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
Kittitas makes and builds things
39% of the jobs based in Kittitas are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Kittitas residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 26%. 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; with 539 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What’s behind Kittitas’ Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Kittitas is better than 31% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Kittitas’ grade up ($80,278, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 12% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (6.3%) is left out: Kittitas’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Kittitas could be anywhere from D− to B+.
35% of working residents work in Ellensburg
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Where Kittitas clocks in
35% of workers
5% of workers
4% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
Kittitas makes things: 39% of its jobs are in goods
300 jobs are based in Kittitas. Here is what they are, next to the jobs Kittitas’s own residents hold wherever they work.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Kittitas, 2013 → 2023: 271 → 300. 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.
Kittitas quiets down on a workday
On a workday 519 residents head out to work, 20 work right here, and 280 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,200 people are in Kittitas on a workday afternoon, 17% fewer than live here.
0.56 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
About 28 minutes each way, about the WA average
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Kittitas workers work from home, vs 20% across Washington. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 535 commuters (the 10% who work from home are left out). Across Washington: 79% drive alone, 4% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
Half of Kittitas commutes less than 8 miles
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
About 26% 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.
Most trips from Kittitas start in a car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Kittitas is more walkable than 40% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 4.7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 8.9% across Washington, on an EPA index of 4.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 593 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). 11.0% of Kittitas households have no vehicle (Washington 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Kittitas’ commuters take a bus or train.
Kittitas is 3,279th of 5,877 U.S. towns of 1,000 to 1,900 on jobs and income
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Kittitas, the top three, the last and three more from Washington.
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 24 | Yarrow Point WA | 1,143 | $250K | 4.5% | 2.2% | 0% | A+ |
| 25 | Woodway WA | 1,316 | $205K | 2.1% | 0.7% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 41 | Fife Heights WA | 1,446 | $157K | 2.4% | 4.5% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,277 | Brookside AL | 1,433 | $59K | 26.5% | 3.9% | <1% | C |
| 3,278 | Kellyville OK | 1,052 | $53K | 12.9% | 2.0% | 3% | C |
| 3,279 | Kittitas WA | 1,440 | $80K | 11.5% | 6.3% | 4% | C |
| 3,280 | Stratford WI | 1,619 | $67K | 13.7% | 1.3% | 11% | C |
| 3,281 | Rivoli Township IL | 1,019 | $56K | 9.6% | 1.6% | 2% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 5,877 | 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.
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 Kittitas: questions
What is the median household income in Kittitas?
$80,278 (±$31,973) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $98,141 across Washington and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Kittitas?
11.5%, against 9.9% across Washington and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Kittitas?
28 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Washington and 26 nationally. 10% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Kittitas work?
4% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Ellensburg (35%, 6 mi), Yakima (5%, 28 mi), Seattle (4%, 101 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Kittitas walkable?
Kittitas is more walkable than 40% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 4.3 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Kittitas without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 11% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Kittitas, from the people who make the trip.
More of Kittitas
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.