Photo: Catlin Mary Ann Miller · CC BY-SA 4.0College students make up 32% of Laramie’s residents
About two in three stay in Laramie for work; outside it, Cheyenne is the main destination (7%, 44 miles). Laramie grades B− for jobs and income and A for walkability. Working residents average 14 minutes each way; Wyoming averages 19, the U.S. 26.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Laramie, in brief
Most jobs in Laramie go to people who live here
Of the 13,679 jobs based in Laramie, 62% are held by Laramie residents. In most towns, people from elsewhere hold most of the local jobs. Day and night ↓
A young workforce
31% of Laramie’s working residents are 29 or younger. The jobs ↓
Commutes from Laramie are quick
The average trip to work takes 14 minutes, against 19 across Wyoming. That’s about 38 hours a year less on the road than the typical Wyoming worker. Time on the road ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey.
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Laramie
On family income, poverty and job access, Laramie is better than 46% of U.S. towns, #8 of 28 in Wyoming. Family income holds Laramie’s grade up ($97,025, U.S. $99,999); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 36% of U.S. towns).
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (27% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 9.9%, against 22.5% for all residents. Unemployment (4.0%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($97,025), since student households pull the household median down ($55,613).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Laramie could be anywhere from C to B.
Who works in Laramie, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 4,400 residents head out to work, 8,516 work right here, and 5,163 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.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.06 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
Jobs in Laramie: what the 13,679 are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Laramie, 2014 → 2024: 12,918 → 13,679. 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 Laramie’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 14 minutes to work from Laramie
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Laramie workers work from home, vs 9% across Wyoming. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 16,754 commuters (the 11% who work from home are left out). Across Wyoming: 83% 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.
Where people from Laramie work
Where Laramie clocks in
7% of workers
1% 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.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Laramie
About 16% 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.
Walkable streets, thin transit: Laramie
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Laramie is more walkable than 88% of U.S. towns, #8 of 28 in Wyoming. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 17.4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.8% across Wyoming, on an EPA index of 7.9.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 18,784 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). 6.3% of Laramie households have no vehicle (Wyoming 4.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 3% of Laramie’s commuters take a bus or train.
Laramie is 927th of 1,283 U.S. towns of 23,000 to 44,000 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Upper Dublin Township PA | 27,258 | $168K | 3.2% | 1.9% | 8% | A+ |
| 2 | Southlake TX | 31,175 | $250K | 1.5% | 2.7% | 10% | A+ |
| 3 | Leawood KS | 34,093 | $186K | 3.1% | 2.0% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 925 | Northampton MA | 31,047 | $80K | 13.4% | 5.5% | 33% | B− |
| 926 | Manitowoc WI | 34,671 | $64K | 12.6% | 3.7% | 47% | B− |
| 927 | Laramie WY | 32,284 | $56K | 22.5% | 4.0% | 66% | B− |
| 928 | Boardman Township OH | 39,687 | $67K | 13.5% | 4.6% | 22% | B− |
| 929 | Bath Township OH | 40,768 | $63K | 14.5% | 4.4% | 10% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 944 | Gillette WY | 34,024 | $81K | 9.8% | 4.6% | 55% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,283 | Bullhead City AZ | 43,987 | $51K | 18.7% | 11.5% | 25% | 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 Laramie, the top three, the last and three more from Wyoming.
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.
- Students. 32% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Laramie: questions
What is the median household income in Laramie?
$55,613 (±$3,005) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $76,176 across Wyoming and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Laramie?
22.5% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 9.9%. Wyoming: 10.5%.
How long is the commute from Laramie?
14 minutes each way on average, against 19 across Wyoming and 26 nationally. 11% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Laramie work?
66% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Cheyenne (7%, 44 mi), Casper (2%, 112 mi), Fort Collins (1%, 60 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Laramie walkable?
Laramie is more walkable than 88% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 7.9 out of 20, and 17% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Laramie without a car?
3% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Laramie, from the people who make the trip.
More of Laramie
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.