Gen. John McCausland House (Boundary Increase) · Photo: Roger B. Wise · CC BY-SA 3.0With 0.5 jobs for every working resident, most of Buffalo works elsewhere
Employers in Buffalo report 168 jobs, and 369 of its residents work somewhere. Buffalo grades C− for jobs and income and C− for walkability. Only 1% work in Buffalo itself; outside it, Charleston draws the most (11%, 26 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Buffalo, in a few figures
Jobs & income in Buffalo: the grade in detail
On income, poverty and job access, Buffalo is better than 20% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Buffalo’s grade up (ahead of 39% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (19.9%, U.S. 12.5%).
Unemployment (8.1%) is left out: Buffalo’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, Buffalo could be anywhere from D to B.
How far it is to work from Buffalo
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.
Buffalo on a workday afternoon
On a workday 364 residents head out to work, 5 work right here, and 163 people come in from elsewhere.
About 980 people are in Buffalo on a workday afternoon, 17% 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.
The places Buffalo commutes to
Where Buffalo clocks in
11% of workers
6% of workers
6% 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.
Jobs in Buffalo: what the 168 are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Buffalo, 2013 → 2023: 95 → 168. 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 Buffalo’s own residents hold wherever they work.
From Buffalo, about 24 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Buffalo workers work from home, vs 9% across West Virginia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 426 commuters (the 7% who work from home are left out). Across West Virginia: 86% drive alone, 1% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Getting around Buffalo: mostly by car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Buffalo is more walkable than 19% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 1.4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.5% across West Virginia, on an EPA index of 4.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 456 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). 6.7% of Buffalo households have no vehicle (West Virginia 8.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Buffalo’s commuters take a bus or train.
Buffalo is 2,932nd of 4,312 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,600 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 555 | Belle WV | 1,088 | $77K | 3.3% | 10.6% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 709 | Barrackville WV | 1,196 | $79K | 4.1% | 3.7% | 1% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 837 | Coal Fork WV | 1,423 | $70K | 2.3% | 29.5% | <1% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,930 | Enchanted Hills IN | 1,039 | $65K | 24.6% | 0.0% | <1% | C− |
| 2,931 | Orangeville UT | 1,271 | $90K | 20.2% | 2.1% | 5% | C− |
| 2,932 | Buffalo WV | 1,185 | $65K | 19.9% | 8.1% | 1% | C− |
| 2,933 | Pigeon Grove Township IL | 1,089 | $69K | 11.4% | 0.5% | 13% | C− |
| 2,934 | Etna ME | 1,245 | $72K | 15.5% | 5.7% | 5% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,312 | 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 Buffalo, the top three, the last and three more from West Virginia.
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 Buffalo: questions
What is the median household income in Buffalo?
$64,583 (±$29,442) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $59,608 across West Virginia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Buffalo?
19.9%, against 16.7% across West Virginia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Buffalo?
24 minutes each way on average, against 27 across West Virginia and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Buffalo work?
1% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Charleston (11%, 26 mi), Winfield (6%, 8 mi), South Charleston (6%, 24 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Buffalo walkable?
Buffalo is more walkable than 19% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 4.7 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Buffalo without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Buffalo, from the people who make the trip.
More of Buffalo
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.