Photo: Magnolia677 · CC BY-SA 3.0Kimball at work: jobs, income and the commute
Employers in Kimball report 29 jobs for 43 working residents. For 29% of workers, the job is at home; West Virginia has 9%. Hardly any work in Kimball; the top destination outside it is Welch (35%, 4 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Who leaves Kimball for work, and who comes in
On a workday 43 residents head out to work, none work right here, and 29 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
0.67 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 2023, primary jobs.
Where Kimball’s working residents head each day
Where Kimball clocks in
35% of workers
2% of workers
2% 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.
Services make up most of the work in Kimball
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Kimball, 2013 → 2023: 132 → 29. 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 Kimball’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Working from home in Kimball
of Kimball workers work from home, vs 9% across West Virginia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 35 commuters (the 29% 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.
The commute from Kimball, by distance
About 29% 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.
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 Kimball: questions
What is the poverty rate in Kimball?
60.2%, against 16.7% across West Virginia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
Where do people who live in Kimball work?
0% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Welch (35%, 4 mi), Warren (2%, 266 mi), Bristol (2%, 71 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Can you get around Kimball 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 Kimball, from the people who make the trip.
More of Kimball
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.