Chapter 5.1 · Jobs here, workers there

Work, wages and access to jobs

In 2019, in the fifth of counties with the fewest local jobs per job held by residents, 45.4% of residents' jobs were in the top earnings band, against 39.5% of the jobs located in those counties.

Author: Vishal Singh
Affiliation: NYU Stern
Published: 9 October 2026

In 2019, in the fifth of counties with the fewest jobs located per job held by residents, 45.4% of the jobs held by residents paid more than $3,333 a month. Of the jobs located in those same counties, 39.5% paid that much. The counts come from the LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES), and Alaska and Massachusetts are left out of every LODES figure here. The jobs a county's residents hold are therefore not the jobs located in the county, and the two differ in what they pay.

Residents hold different jobs from those located in their county

LODES places every job at the worker's home in its residence table and again at the workplace in its workplace table.[1] Pooled over every county, the two tables count the same jobs and give the same share in the top earnings band. In a group of counties the two shares differ because of commuting across the group's boundary. The chapter ranks the 3,099 counties in both tables by jobs located per job held by residents and cuts them into fifths.

In the fifth with the fewest jobs per resident job, the top-band share of residents' jobs exceeded that of jobs located by 5.9 (95% CI 3.2 to 7.8) points. The order reversed in the fifth with the most jobs per resident job. There 47.8% of residents' jobs were in the top band, against 49.8% of the jobs located in those counties.

Figure 1

In the fifth of counties with the fewest jobs per resident job, 45.4% of jobs held by residents were in the top earnings band against 39.5% of the jobs located there

Percent of jobs paying more than $3,333 a month, jobs held by a county's residents against jobs located in the county, fifths of counties ranked by jobs located per job held by residents, 2019

Jobs located in the county
Jobs held by the county's residents

Show data

Data for In the fifth of counties with the fewest jobs per resident job, 45.4% of jobs held by residents were in the top earnings band against 39.5% of the jobs located there
Fifth of counties	Counties	Jobs located per job held by residents, lowest	Jobs located per job held by residents, highest	Top-band share, jobs located (percent)	Top-band share, jobs held by residents (percent)	Jobs held by residents	Jobs located
Fewest jobs per resident job	619	0.14	0.60	39.5	45.4	8,939,569	4,609,391
Second fifth	620	0.60	0.74	41.6	46.4	15,095,852	10,201,971
Middle fifth	620	0.74	0.86	43.0	46.7	20,101,609	16,046,376
Fourth fifth	620	0.86	1.01	45.3	46.9	32,659,196	30,931,375
Most jobs per resident job	620	1.01	11.24	49.8	47.8	65,464,789	80,367,572

The dot for residents' jobs lies to the right of the dot for jobs located in every fifth but the last, and to the left in the fifth with the most jobs per resident job. Each dot is the pooled share of jobs paying more than the top-band cut in 2019, with a 95% interval from a bootstrap over states, and the two end fifths are drawn in colour. The last column gives residents' jobs minus jobs located. Values in Table 5.

Note: The same jobs are counted in both tables, once at the home and once at the workplace, so the two shares agree when every county is pooled; they differ in a group of counties because of commuting across the group's boundary.Note: Counties are ranked on jobs located per job held by residents, a count ratio that does not use earnings, and the fifths hold near-equal numbers of counties, not equal numbers of jobs. The lowest fifth holds 6.3% of jobs held by residents and 3.2% of jobs located, and the highest fifth holds 46.0% and 56.5%. Moving the county at a cut to the next fifth changes any of these shares by up to 0.1 points. The ranges of the ratio are in the table. Earnings bands are fixed in current dollars, so shares are compared within 2019 only.Note: Alaska (no 2019 workplace file) and Massachusetts (a stub 2010 workplace file) are left out of every LODES figure, so the same states are covered in every year.Source: LEHD LODES residence and workplace tables, 2019 (Alaska and Massachusetts left out); jobs-weighted counts with confidentiality noise, earnings bands in current dollars

Jobs located vary more across these fifths than jobs held by residents do. From the lowest fifth to the highest, the top-band share of jobs located rises by 10.3 (95% CI 8.5 to 12.5) points and the share among residents' jobs by 2.4 (95% CI 0.5 to 4.5) points. The jobs that residents hold differ less across places than the jobs located in those places.

How we know

The comparison uses the LODES residence and workplace tables for 2019. LODES counts jobs, not people, so a worker with two jobs is counted once for each job. It adds noise to protect confidentiality, and it reports earnings only in three fixed bands of monthly earnings in current dollars.[2] The cut for the top band does not move with prices, so the band shares hold for 2019 and say nothing about change over time. The data give residents' earnings only as these bands, so they cannot say how many dollars residents bring home. Alaska has no workplace file for 2019 and Massachusetts has only a stub for 2010, so both states are left out of every LODES figure. The fifths hold near-equal numbers of counties, not equal numbers of jobs. Every claim describes counties and tracts and not the workers inside them, since a pattern across places need not hold for people (ecological inference). The report gives every estimate with its interval and sample size.

Out-of-county work rises as counties get smaller

Commuting separates the jobs located in a county from the jobs its residents hold, and commuting across county lines is common. Of the jobs held by residents of a county in 2019, 45.4% (95% CI 41.8% to 49.1%) were located in a different county. That share comes from the LODES table that pairs each job's home county with its work county. A survey of workers gives a lower share, 28% of workers traveling to a different county in the American Community Survey for 2009 to 2013.[3] LODES counts every job, second jobs included, and assigns the workplaces of employers with several sites by a model, so the two levels are not comparable.

The LODES share rises as counties get smaller, with county types taken from the 2023 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes. In 2019 it was 44.1% for residents of metropolitan counties and 62.4% for residents of nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none. The share rose between 2010 and 2019 in each type, over the same states in every year. The top-band comparison above, by contrast, is for 2019 alone.

Figure 2

In 2019, 62.4% of the jobs held by residents of nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none were in another county, against 44.1% for residents of metropolitan counties

Percent of jobs held by a county's residents that are located in a different county, pooled over the counties of each type, 2010, 2015 and 2019, jobs counted by home county

Jobs held by residents that are located in another county (percent)

Show data

Data for In 2019, 62.4% of the jobs held by residents of nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none were in another county, against 44.1% for residents of metropolitan counties
conf_high	conf_low	estimate	jobs	n_counties	series	year
46.89	39.37	42.95	105160058	1,171	Metropolitan	2010
50.45	46.30	48.58	13636739	894	Nonmetropolitan, larger towns	2010
61.81	56.61	59.46	4091694	1,034	Nonmetropolitan, smaller towns or none	2010
47.03	39.24	42.87	115867165	1,171	Metropolitan	2015
51.16	46.90	49.24	14121233	894	Nonmetropolitan, larger towns	2015
62.95	57.67	60.51	4083810	1,034	Nonmetropolitan, smaller towns or none	2015
48.26	40.33	44.09	123293844	1,171	Metropolitan	2019
53.45	49.13	51.46	14490434	894	Nonmetropolitan, larger towns	2019
64.84	59.55	62.44	4179253	1,034	Nonmetropolitan, smaller towns or none	2019

The line for nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none is highest and the metropolitan line lowest in every year shown, and each line rises between 2010 and 2019. Each point is the pooled share of residents' jobs located outside the home county, with a 95% interval from a bootstrap over states. Values in Table 4.

Note: Alaska and Massachusetts are left out of every year, so every year covers the same states. Alaska has no workplace file for 2019 and its residence table holds 3,090 jobs, against 308,964 in 2015. The Massachusetts workplace file for 2010 is a stub of 2 tracts and 17 jobs, and its residence table holds 151,718 jobs, against 3,330,566 in 2015. Puerto Rico is not in the LODES tables used here.Note: LODES counts every job, second jobs included, and assigns the workplaces of employers with several sites by a model. A survey of workers gives a lower share (28% of workers traveled to a different county in the 2009-2013 ACS), so the two levels are not comparable.Source: LEHD LODES origin-destination tables, 2010, 2015 and 2019 (Alaska and Massachusetts left out); jobs-weighted counts with confidentiality noise; county types from the USDA 2023 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes

A county's pay describes the jobs located there

The chapter keeps residents and jobs apart in every source. Unemployment is counted among the people who live in a county, and pay is counted for the jobs located there. The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) reports what employers pay for the jobs located in each county.[4] Across the counties with a published average pay in 2019, weighted by 2020 population, that pay correlates +0.87 (95% CI 0.86 to 0.92) with the top-band share of jobs located. It correlates +0.73 (95% CI 0.69 to 0.77) with the top-band share of jobs held by residents. That is consistent with the pay in a county describing its jobs and not its residents' earnings. Part of the contrast may come from a shared source, since QCEW and the LODES workplace table both draw on state unemployment insurance wage records. The income of residents, as tax returns report it, is in Chapter 5.2, Home value, income and redlining.

The split by neighborhood depends on the county

LODES also places jobs in census tracts, and the Area Deprivation Index ranks every tract in the country from least to most deprived.[5] In metropolitan counties the top-band share of residents' jobs falls from the least to the most deprived fifth of tracts and crosses below the share of jobs located (Figure 3). In 2019, in the most deprived fifth of tracts in metropolitan counties, 43.7% of jobs located were in the top band, against 32.6% of jobs held by the tracts' residents. The index is built partly from tract income and employment, so the fall in the residents' share across the fifths is partly mechanical. The data have no tract-to-tract flows, so they cannot say whether the better-paid jobs in deprived metropolitan tracts are held by the tracts' residents or by people who commute in.

Figure 3

In the most deprived fifth of tracts in metropolitan counties, 43.7% of jobs located there were in the top earnings band against 32.6% of jobs held by the tracts' residents

Percent of jobs paying more than $3,333 a month, jobs held by residents of a tract against jobs located in it, by fifth of tracts by Area Deprivation Index rank within each county type, 2019

Jobs paying more than the top-band cut (percent of jobs)

Jobs held by residents of the tract
Jobs located in the tract

Fifth of tracts by Area Deprivation Index rank (1 least deprived, 5 most deprived)

Show data

Data for In the most deprived fifth of tracts in metropolitan counties, 43.7% of jobs located there were in the top earnings band against 32.6% of jobs held by the tracts' residents
conf_high	conf_low	estimate	fifth	group	kind	n_tracts
60.46	54.48	57.50	1	Metropolitan counties	Jobs held by residents of the tract	15,826
56.54	49.97	53.25	1	Metropolitan counties	Jobs located in the tract	15,826
53.33	51.12	52.25	2	Metropolitan counties	Jobs held by residents of the tract	15,350
50.22	47.63	48.88	2	Metropolitan counties	Jobs located in the tract	15,350
47.57	45.97	46.76	3	Metropolitan counties	Jobs held by residents of the tract	14,289
45.88	44.03	44.94	3	Metropolitan counties	Jobs located in the tract	14,289
41.50	40.41	40.94	4	Metropolitan counties	Jobs held by residents of the tract	12,062
44.35	42.48	43.44	4	Metropolitan counties	Jobs located in the tract	12,062
33.23	32.06	32.61	5	Metropolitan counties	Jobs held by residents of the tract	9,927
44.59	42.64	43.65	5	Metropolitan counties	Jobs located in the tract	9,927
44.87	41.62	43.26	1	Nonmetropolitan counties with larger towns	Jobs held by residents of the tract	281
41.93	36.76	39.27	1	Nonmetropolitan counties with larger towns	Jobs located in the tract	281
46.84	43.78	45.27	2	Nonmetropolitan counties with larger towns	Jobs held by residents of the tract	701
43.21	37.96	40.49	2	Nonmetropolitan counties with larger towns	Jobs located in the tract	701
45.03	43.60	44.31	3	Nonmetropolitan counties with larger towns	Jobs held by residents of the tract	1,626
42.12	39.17	40.59	3	Nonmetropolitan counties with larger towns	Jobs located in the tract	1,626
42.01	41.22	41.62	4	Nonmetropolitan counties with larger towns	Jobs held by residents of the tract	3,183
40.59	39.09	39.84	4	Nonmetropolitan counties with larger towns	Jobs located in the tract	3,183
35.71	34.90	35.31	5	Nonmetropolitan counties with larger towns	Jobs held by residents of the tract	4,161
37.81	36.61	37.21	5	Nonmetropolitan counties with larger towns	Jobs located in the tract	4,161
43.36	38.56	40.92	2	Nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none	Jobs held by residents of the tract	84
39.39	31.68	35.51	2	Nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none	Jobs located in the tract	84
42	40.01	41.03	3	Nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none	Jobs held by residents of the tract	376
40.68	36.57	38.61	3	Nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none	Jobs located in the tract	376
40.37	39.34	39.85	4	Nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none	Jobs held by residents of the tract	1,068
40.06	37.85	38.96	4	Nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none	Jobs located in the tract	1,068
35.85	35.08	35.47	5	Nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none	Jobs held by residents of the tract	2,077
35.92	34.51	35.23	5	Nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none	Jobs located in the tract	2,077

In metropolitan counties the line for residents' jobs falls from the least to the most deprived fifth and crosses below the line for jobs located. Each panel is one county type, and each point is the pooled share of jobs paying more than the top-band cut in 2019, with a 95% interval from a bootstrap over counties. The index is built partly from income and employment, so the fall in the residents' line is partly mechanical. Values in Table 8.

Note: Fifths hold near-equal numbers of tracts nationally (tied ranks stay together), so a county type has few tracts in the fifths it rarely contains. A cell with fewer than 30 tracts is not drawn, which leaves out the least deprived fifth of nonmetropolitan counties with smaller towns or none.Note: Jobs located are placed by LODES at the workplace tract and jobs held by residents at the home tract, so the two lines describe different groups of people in the same tracts. 3.1% of jobs located and 0.3% of jobs held by residents are in tracts with no index rank and are not in the figure.Note: Earnings bands are fixed in current dollars, so shares are compared within 2019 only. County types follow the county of the tract.Source: LEHD LODES residence and workplace tables, 2019 (Alaska and Massachusetts left out), jobs-weighted; Area Deprivation Index 2023, national rank; county types from the USDA 2023 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes

Whether residents of poor neighborhoods can reach the jobs that match their skills has a long history in economics under the name of spatial mismatch. The idea began with a study of housing segregation and the suburbanization of employment.[6] The chapter's tract figures show where jobs and workers are by tract. They do not measure travel time, transit or the matching of skills to openings, and they cannot test that hypothesis.

What this cannot tell you

Every pattern here describes counties and tracts and says nothing certain about any worker. The same dollar cut buys different amounts in different places, so top-band shares are not comparisons of purchasing power. Noise added for confidentiality makes the shares of small counties and tracts imprecise. The data cannot say who holds the better-paid jobs in a deprived neighborhood, or whether commuting costs or hiring practices keep residents from them.

Go deeper

The report: every estimate with its interval and sample size.
Tables: every figure of the report as a table.

Data sources

BLS Local Area Unemployment StatisticsCounty annual-average unemployment, 2000 to 2024 (map: 2023); residents by county of residenceYears: 1990-2024 · Weights: labor force of each county for pooled rates; each county once for distributions · License: Public domain (U.S. federal)
BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and WagesCounty total-covered employment and wages, 2019 and 2023; jobs by county of the workplaceYears: 1990-2024 · Weights: none (full counts of covered payroll); jobs in each county for pooled pay · License: Public domain (U.S. federal)
LEHD Origin-Destination Employment StatisticsResidence, workplace and origin-destination tables, 2010, 2015 and 2019 (Alaska and Massachusetts left out)Years: 2002-2022 · Weights: jobs in each table; bootstrap over states for counties and over counties for tracts · License: Public domain (U.S. federal)
American Community Survey2019-2023 tract unemployment, labor force participation, commute and work-from-home sharesYears: 2019-2023 (5-year) · Weights: 2019-2023 tract population · License: Public domain (U.S. Census Bureau)
Area Deprivation IndexArea Deprivation Index 2023, national rank by tractYears: 2023 release (version 4.0.1; built on ACS 2019-2023) · Weights: none (index); tract values are unweighted means of block-group ranks · License: Free for non-commercial use; cite the Neighborhood Atlas and Kind and Buckingham
Rural-Urban Continuum Codes2023 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes for county types and 2020 county population for correlation weightsYears: 2023 · Weights: 2020 county population · License: Public domain (U.S. federal)

All data sources

References

U.S. Census Bureau, Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program (2025). LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) Dataset Structure, Format Version 8.4. U.S. Census Bureau technical documentation (revised December 3, 2025). lehd.ces.census.gov/data/lodes/LODES8/LODESTechDoc8.4.pdf
U.S. Census Bureau, Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program (2025). OnTheMap: Data Overview (LODES Version 8). U.S. Census Bureau technical documentation (revised December 2, 2025). lehd.ces.census.gov/doc/help/onthemap/OnTheMapDataOverview.pdf
McKenzie, Brian; Burd, Charlynn (2015). Where Do All Those Commuters Come From? Census Bureau Releases New Information on County-to-County Commuting Flows. U.S. Census Bureau, Random Samplings blog (August 13, 2015). www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2015/08/where-do-all-those-commuters-come-from-census-bureau-releases-new-information-on-county-to-county-commuting-flows.html
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2026). Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages: Concepts. BLS Handbook of Methods (page last modified August 31, 2026). www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cew/concepts.htm
Kind, Amy J. H.; Buckingham, William R. (2018). Making Neighborhood-Disadvantage Metrics Accessible: The Neighborhood Atlas. New England Journal of Medicine 378(26): 2456-2458. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1802313
Kain, John F. (1968). Housing Segregation, Negro Employment, and Metropolitan Decentralization. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 82(2): 175-197. doi:10.2307/1885893

How to cite

@misc{singh2026workwagesandaccesstojobs,
  author = {Singh, Vishal},
  title = {Work, wages and access to jobs},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://vishalsingh.org/zipcode/work-wages-and-access-to-jobs},
  note = {In ZIP Code Destiny. Published 9 October 2026.}
}