Households in Wrens earn less than those in 97% of U.S. towns
Below the poverty line: 26.1% of residents, next to 13.4% across Georgia. For jobs and income Wrens is better than 4% of U.S. towns (D−); for walkability it is more walkable than 62% of U.S. towns (B). Working from home is the commute for 5% of workers, where Georgia as a whole has 16%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Wrens, in a few figures
Fewer than half of Wrens workers earn over $40,000 a year
42% of Wrens’ working residents earn over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year) at their main job, wherever they work, and 18% earn $1,250 a month or less. The jobs ↓
Wrens makes and builds things
37% of the jobs based in Wrens are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Wrens residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 25%. The jobs ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 728 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Why Wrens gets the Jobs & income grade it does
Job access by car holds Wrens’ grade up (ahead of 25% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($37,609, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (17.4%) is left out: Wrens’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Wrens could be anywhere from D− to D.
Wrens works in goods: 37% of its jobs
956 jobs are based in Wrens.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Wrens, 2013 → 2023: 1,060 → 956. 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 Wrens’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How many people are in Wrens by day
On a workday 631 residents head out to work, 97 work right here, and 859 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,300 people are in Wrens on a workday afternoon, 11% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.31 per resident).
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 Wrens commutes to
Where Wrens clocks in
5% 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.
Time on the road from Wrens: about 24 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Wrens workers work from home, vs 16% across Georgia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 728 commuters (the 5% who work from home are left out). Across Georgia: 84% 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 distance from Wrens to work
About 28% 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.
The commute in Wrens is mostly behind the wheel
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 765 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). 20.4% of Wrens households have no vehicle (Georgia 5.9%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Wrens’ commuters take a bus or train.
Wrens and other U.S. towns of 1,500 to 2,800
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 14 | Berkeley Lake GA | 2,034 | $166K | 1.6% | 1.6% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 109 | Fairplay GA | 1,881 | $120K | 1.6% | 1.2% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 188 | Isle of Hope GA | 2,053 | $105K | 1.4% | 1.3% | 5% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 4,835 | Altona NY | 2,522 | $51K | 19.2% | 8.3% | 2% | D− |
| 4,836 | Washington Township OH | 1,936 | $43K | 26.5% | 1.4% | 4% | D− |
| 4,837 | Wrens GA | 2,100 | $38K | 26.1% | 17.4% | 13% | D− |
| 4,838 | Crisfield MD | 2,555 | $50K | 20.5% | 15.0% | 19% | D− |
| 4,839 | Aitkin MN | 2,155 | $48K | 22.1% | 4.0% | 38% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,148 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Wrens, the top three, the last and three more from Georgia.
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 Wrens: questions
What is the median household income in Wrens?
$37,609 (±$8,927) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,353 across Georgia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Wrens?
26.1%, against 13.4% across Georgia and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Wrens?
24 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Georgia and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Wrens work?
13% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Augusta (16%, 21 mi), Louisville (5%, 15 mi), Martinez (3%, 27 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Wrens walkable?
Wrens is more walkable than 62% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 7.6 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Wrens without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 20% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Wrens, from the people who make the trip.
More of Wrens
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.