Stewart's Tavern · Photo: Generic1139 · CC BY-SA 3.0Households in Fort Ashby earn less than those in 93% of U.S. towns
Fort Ashby grades D for jobs and income and C− for walkability. Poverty touches 16.6% of residents, against 16.7% across West Virginia. Only 3% work in Fort Ashby itself; outside it, Cumberland draws the most (18%, 11 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Fort Ashby’s Jobs & income grade comes from
On income, poverty and job access, Fort Ashby is better than 7% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Fort Ashby’s grade up; household income pulls it down ($44,538, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (0.0%) is left out: Fort Ashby’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, Fort Ashby could be anywhere from D− to B−.
How a workday changes Fort Ashby
On a workday 534 residents head out to work, 16 work right here, and 203 people come in from elsewhere.
About 950 people are in Fort Ashby on a workday afternoon, 26% fewer than live here.
0.40 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
The places Fort Ashby commutes to
Where Fort Ashby clocks in
18% 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.
The 219 jobs based in Fort Ashby
219 jobs are based in Fort Ashby.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fort Ashby, 2014 → 2024: 79 → 219. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Fort Ashby’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A commute of about 26 minutes in Fort Ashby
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.2 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fort Ashby workers work from home, vs 9% across West Virginia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 556 commuters (the 3% 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Fort Ashby
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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Driving is how Fort Ashby gets around
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Fort Ashby is more walkable than 23% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 3.5% across West Virginia.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 571 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). 0.0% of Fort Ashby households have no vehicle (West Virginia 8.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Fort Ashby’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 900 to 1,700, Fort Ashby ranks 4,212th of 4,866 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% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 633 | Belle WV | 1,088 | $77K | 3.3% | 10.6% | 2% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 805 | Barrackville WV | 1,196 | $79K | 4.1% | 3.7% | 1% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 953 | Coal Fork WV | 1,423 | $70K | 2.3% | 29.5% | 1% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,210 | Frederic WI | 1,133 | $53K | 16.0% | 1.6% | 10% | D |
| 4,211 | Claypool Hill VA | 1,610 | $45K | 15.5% | 1.4% | 5% | D |
| 4,212 | Fort Ashby WV | 1,283 | $45K | 16.6% | 0.0% | 3% | D |
| 4,213 | Orwell OH | 1,499 | $42K | 27.4% | 6.7% | 11% | D |
| 4,214 | Warner OK | 1,587 | $55K | 19.8% | 5.8% | 12% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Fort Ashby, 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 2024, 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 Fort Ashby: questions
What is the median household income in Fort Ashby?
$44,538 (±$43,350) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $59,608 across West Virginia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fort Ashby?
16.6%, against 16.7% across West Virginia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fort Ashby?
26 minutes each way on average, against 27 across West Virginia and 26 nationally. 3% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fort Ashby work?
3% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Cumberland (18%, 11 mi), Keyser (3%, 12 mi), Cresaptown (2%, 8 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Fort Ashby walkable?
Fort Ashby is more walkable than 23% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 7.0 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fort Ashby without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 0% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fort Ashby, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fort Ashby
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.