Photo: B.D.'s world · CC BY-SA 2.0Household incomes in Tonasket are lower than in 97% of U.S. towns
Tonasket grades D− for jobs and income and A− for walkability. Below the poverty line: 26.7% of residents, against 9.9% across Washington. For 10% of workers, the job is at home, where Washington as a whole has 20%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Tonasket at work: what stands out
Tonasket is where the jobs are
Tonasket has 766 jobs, 2.0 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
A big share show a job far from home
38% 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 ↓
Commutes from Tonasket are quick
The average trip to work takes 17 minutes, against 27 across Washington. That’s about 77 hours a year less on the road than the typical Washington worker. Time on the road ↓
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 377 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Inside Tonasket’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Tonasket is near the bottom of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Tonasket’s grade.
Unemployment (6.1%) is left out: Tonasket’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, Tonasket could be anywhere from D− to D.
Who leaves Tonasket for work, and who comes in
On a workday 279 residents head out to work, 98 work right here, and 668 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,500 people are in Tonasket on a workday afternoon, 34% more than live here.
2.0 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.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Tonasket
About 38% 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 trip to work from Tonasket: about 17 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Tonasket workers work from home, vs 20% across Washington. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 335 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.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Where Tonasket’s workers come from
Where Tonasket clocks in
7% of workers
5% of workers
3% 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.
Tonasket is a services town
766 jobs are based in Tonasket.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Tonasket, 2013 → 2023: 694 → 766. 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 Tonasket’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Tonasket is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Tonasket is more walkable than 77% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 20.9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 8.9% across Washington, on an EPA index of 6.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 371 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). 13.5% of Tonasket households have no vehicle (Washington 7.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Tonasket’s commuters take a bus or train.
Where Tonasket sits 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,725 | Eagle Butte SD | 1,269 | $46K | 31.8% | 24.7% | 20% | D− |
| 3,726 | Menard TX | 1,356 | $41K | 26.7% | 9.2% | 26% | D− |
| 3,727 | Tonasket WA | 1,133 | $38K | 26.7% | 6.1% | 26% | D− |
| 3,728 | Fern Acres HI | 1,480 | $40K | 27.4% | 6.8% | 1% | D− |
| 3,729 | Rosedale MS | 1,423 | $19K | 57.5% | 22.3% | 12% | 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 Tonasket, 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 Tonasket: questions
What is the median household income in Tonasket?
$37,591 (±$7,682) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $98,141 across Washington and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Tonasket?
26.7%, against 9.9% across Washington and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Tonasket?
17 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Washington and 26 nationally. 10% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Tonasket work?
26% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Omak (7%, 20 mi), Okanogan (5%, 24 mi), Wenatchee (3%, 97 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Tonasket walkable?
Tonasket is more walkable than 77% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 6.5 out of 20, and 21% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Tonasket without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 14% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Tonasket, from the people who make the trip.
More of Tonasket
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.