Holy Trinity Episcopal Church · Photo: Jon Roanhaus · CC BY-SA 4.0Most of Palouse commutes out: there are 0.4 jobs for every working resident
139 jobs are based in Palouse, and 333 of its residents work somewhere. Palouse grades B for jobs and income and C− for walkability. Only 5% work in Palouse; the top destination outside it is Pullman (32%, 13 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Palouse: the figures worth knowing
Where Palouse’s Jobs & income grade comes from
On income, poverty and job access, Palouse is better than 58% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Palouse’s grade up (3.1%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 7% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income.
Unemployment (0.5%) is left out: Palouse’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, Palouse could be anywhere from B− to B+.
Where Palouse’s working residents head each day
Where Palouse clocks in
Lines 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.
How a workday changes Palouse
On a workday 318 residents head out to work, 15 work right here, and 124 people come in from elsewhere.
About 830 people are in Palouse on a workday afternoon, 19% fewer 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.
Palouse works in goods: 29% of its jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Palouse, 2013 → 2023: 111 → 139. 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 Palouse’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How long Palouse spends getting to work: about 28 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Palouse workers work from home, vs 20% across Washington. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 482 commuters (the 12% 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.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Palouse
About 27% 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.
Driving is how Palouse gets around
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Palouse is more walkable than 16% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Palouse 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 550 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). 3.6% of Palouse households have no vehicle (Washington 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Palouse’s commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 3,133 U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400, Palouse comes 792nd 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 15 | Yarrow Point WA | 1,143 | $250K | 4.5% | 2.2% | 0% | A+ |
| 16 | Woodway WA | 1,316 | $205K | 2.1% | 0.7% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 26 | Ames Lake WA | 1,245 | $250K | 1.1% | 3.1% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 790 | Atoka NM | 1,347 | $84K | 3.3% | 0.0% | 3% | B |
| 791 | Woodsboro MD | 1,136 | $117K | 16.6% | 2.5% | 2% | B |
| 792 | Palouse WA | 1,019 | $89K | 3.1% | 0.5% | 5% | B |
| 793 | Little Beaver Township PA | 1,192 | $61K | 5.4% | 3.3% | 2% | B |
| 794 | Brookfield VT | 1,276 | $99K | 6.3% | 0.0% | 5% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 3,133 | 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 Palouse, 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 Palouse: questions
What is the median household income in Palouse?
$88,750 (±$10,252) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $98,141 across Washington and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Palouse?
3.1%, against 9.9% across Washington and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Palouse?
28 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Washington and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Palouse work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Pullman (32%, 13 mi), Garfield (7%, 8 mi), Colfax (7%, 12 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Palouse walkable?
Palouse is more walkable than 16% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 5.5 out of 20, and <1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Palouse without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Palouse, from the people who make the trip.
More of Palouse
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.