Photo: SounderBruce · CC BY-SA 4.0Morton has 2.1 jobs for every working resident: 686 people commute in to work
748 jobs are based in Morton for 362 working residents. Morton grades D for jobs and income and A− for walkability. Working from home is the commute for 9% of workers (Washington 20%).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Morton at work: what stands out
Morton is where the jobs are
Morton has 748 jobs, 2.1 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
A big share show a job far from home
34% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. How far ↓
The better-paid jobs are outside Morton
64% of Morton residents earn over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year) at their main job, but only 46% of the jobs based in Morton pay that much. Most residents work elsewhere: 83% 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 362 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
The four measures behind Morton’s grade
On income, poverty and job access, Morton is better than 10% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Morton’s grade up (13.7%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 3% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (15.9%) is left out: Morton’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, Morton could be anywhere from D− to C+.
The daily commute in and out of Morton
On a workday 300 residents head out to work and 62 work right here.
About 1,500 people are in Morton on a workday afternoon, 35% 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.
How far Morton goes to work
About 34% 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.
The kinds of work in Morton
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Morton, 2013 → 2023: 935 → 748. 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 Morton’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The daily trip into Morton
Where Morton clocks in
5% 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.
Getting to work from Morton takes about 24 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Morton workers work from home, vs 20% across Washington. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 361 commuters (the 9% 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.
Morton is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Morton is more walkable than 82% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 22.4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 8.9% across Washington, on an EPA index of 7.0.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 397 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% 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 under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% 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 Morton households have no vehicle (Washington 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Morton’s commuters take a bus or train.
Morton next to U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500: 3,096th of 3,771 on jobs and income
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,094 | Otto Township PA | 1,474 | $53K | 16.4% | 5.6% | 3% | D |
| 3,095 | Tarkio MO | 1,478 | $57K | 14.4% | 4.1% | 17% | D |
| 3,096 | Morton WA | 1,102 | $58K | 13.7% | 15.9% | 17% | D |
| 3,097 | Crivitz WI | 1,137 | $55K | 14.7% | 1.4% | 24% | D |
| 3,098 | Penobscot ME | 1,159 | $63K | 16.0% | 4.2% | 6% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 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 Morton, 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 Morton: questions
What is the median household income in Morton?
$57,813 (±$18,762) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $98,141 across Washington and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Morton?
13.7%, against 9.9% across Washington and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Morton?
24 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Washington and 26 nationally. 9% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Morton work?
17% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Seattle (5%, 73 mi), Tacoma (5%, 49 mi), Chehalis (4%, 33 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Morton walkable?
Morton is more walkable than 82% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.0 out of 20, and 22% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Morton without a car?
0% 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 Morton, from the people who make the trip.
More of Morton
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.