Photo: Frank Schulenburg · CC BY-SA 4.0Where Langley earns its living
Jobs and income earn Langley C; getting around on foot earns it A+. Transit is limited for a town this walkable: about 3.7 trips an hour stop near the typical resident at the evening peak, against 94.7 in Seattle. 28% of workers work from home; Washington has 20%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work and commuting in Langley, in brief
Langley is where the jobs are
Langley has 552 jobs, 1.6 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Langley’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Langley is Seattle, 29 miles away as the crow flies. 15% of working residents (54) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
The better-paid jobs are outside Langley
65% of Langley residents earn over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year) at their main job, but only 44% of the jobs based in Langley pay that much. Most residents work elsewhere: 89% leave town for their job. 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 355 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Where Langley’s Jobs & income grade comes from
Household income holds Langley’s grade up ($77,072, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 4% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (4.2%) is left out: Langley’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, Langley could be anywhere from D to C+.
The workday shuffle in and out of Langley
On a workday 316 residents head out to work, 39 work right here, and 513 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,300 people are in Langley on a workday afternoon, 17% more than live here.
1.6 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than 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.
Half of Langley commutes less than 16 miles
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.
Mostly services: health care, schools and offices
552 jobs are based in Langley.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Langley, 2013 → 2023: 377 → 552. 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 Langley’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting in to Langley: where workers come from
Where Langley clocks in
15% 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.
Each way, about 31 minutes from Langley
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Langley workers work from home, vs 20% across Washington. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 240 commuters (the 28% 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.
In Langley, walking beats the bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Langley is more walkable than 98% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Langley 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 333 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 90% 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 3.7 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 79% 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). 5.3% of Langley households have no vehicle (Washington 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 9% of Langley’s commuters take a bus or train.
2,200th of 3,771: where Langley ranks among U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 17 | Yarrow Point WA | 1,143 | $250K | 4.5% | 2.2% | 0% | A+ |
| 18 | Woodway WA | 1,316 | $205K | 2.1% | 0.7% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 30 | Fife Heights WA | 1,446 | $157K | 2.4% | 4.5% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,198 | Port Edwards WI | 1,358 | $81K | 14.4% | 1.3% | 2% | C |
| 2,199 | Rosepine LA | 1,454 | $61K | 9.5% | 0.0% | 3% | C |
| 2,200 | Langley WA | 1,129 | $77K | 10.4% | 4.2% | 11% | C |
| 2,201 | Shullsburg WI | 1,240 | $64K | 11.7% | 4.6% | 11% | C |
| 2,202 | Fulton NY | 1,205 | $76K | 10.0% | 0.8% | 3% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 3,771 | 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 Langley, 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.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Langley: questions
What is the median household income in Langley?
$77,072 (±$10,529) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $98,141 across Washington and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Langley?
10.4%, against 9.9% across Washington and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Langley?
31 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Washington and 26 nationally. 28% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Langley work?
11% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Seattle (15%, 29 mi), Freeland (8%, 7 mi), Everett (5%, 11 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Langley walkable?
Langley is more walkable than 98% of U.S. towns (Walkability A+): an EPA walkability index of 12.8 out of 20, and 23% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Langley without a car?
9% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Langley, from the people who make the trip.
More of Langley
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.