Photo: Dirk DBQ · CC BY 2.042% of Ames’ residents are college students
Measured by family income, Ames is ahead of 78% of U.S. towns. Ames grades B+ for jobs and income and A for walkability. More than half work in Ames itself; outside it, Des Moines draws the most (7%, 31 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Ames: the figures worth knowing
Ames is where the jobs are
Ames has 34,775 jobs, 1.5 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
A young workforce
33% of Ames’ working residents are 29 or younger, about one in three. 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.
Inside Ames’ Jobs & income grade
On family income, poverty and job access, Ames is better than 72% of U.S. towns, #37 of 140 in Iowa. Family income holds Ames’ grade up ($120,134, U.S. $99,999); the poverty rate pulls it down (10.5%, U.S. 11.9%). It also does well on job access by car.
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (31% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 10.5%, against 25.5% for all residents. Unemployment (5.8%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($120,134), since student households pull the household median down ($60,991).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Ames could be anywhere from B to A−.
The daily flow of workers through Ames
On a workday 10,869 residents head out to work, 11,888 work right here, and 22,887 people come in from elsewhere.
About 80,000 people are in Ames on a workday afternoon, 18% more than live here.
1.5 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than 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.
The 34,775 jobs based in Ames
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ames, 2013 → 2023: 31,165 → 34,775. 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 Ames’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Where Ames’s workers come from
Where Ames clocks in
4% 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.
About 16 minutes to work from Ames
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Ames workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 32,592 commuters (the 12% who work from home are left out). Across Iowa: 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.
Ames’ commute, mile by mile
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.
In Ames, walking beats the bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Ames is more walkable than 88% of U.S. towns, #13 of 140 in Iowa. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 19.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.4% across Iowa, 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 37,081 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). 7.2% of Ames households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 6% of Ames’ commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 48,000 to 92,000, Ames ranks 270th of 645 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | McLean VA | 49,627 | $250K | 2.9% | 2.3% | 6% | A+ |
| 2 | Lakeville MN | 79,270 | $139K | 2.9% | 2.0% | 11% | A+ |
| 3 | Fulshear TX | 64,630 | $187K | 1.6% | 2.8% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 19 | Ankeny IA | 77,833 | $108K | 4.2% | 1.9% | 22% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 84 | Urbandale IA | 48,570 | $113K | 6.8% | 2.9% | 12% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 169 | West Des Moines IA | 74,224 | $87K | 8.4% | 2.4% | 30% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 268 | Skokie IL | 66,544 | $95K | 9.7% | 5.2% | 10% | B+ |
| 269 | New Rochelle NY | 85,864 | $109K | 10.1% | 5.9% | 14% | B+ |
| 270 | Ames IA | 68,220 | $61K | 25.5% | 5.8% | 52% | B+ |
| 271 | Little Elm TX | 62,727 | $119K | 9.0% | 6.6% | 3% | B+ |
| 272 | Waldorf MD | 82,943 | $116K | 7.7% | 5.9% | 11% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 645 | Albany GA | 66,907 | $47K | 27.5% | 11.2% | 51% | 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 Ames, the top three, the last and three more from Iowa.
Next door to Ames
The biggest share goes to Nevada (3%).
Jobs & commute next door
Darker towns draw more of Ames’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
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.
- Students. 42% 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 Ames: questions
What is the median household income in Ames?
$60,991 (±$1,892) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ames?
25.5% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 10.5%. Iowa: 11.1%.
How long is the commute from Ames?
16 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ames work?
52% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Des Moines (7%, 31 mi), West Des Moines (4%, 34 mi), Ankeny (3%, 20 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Ames walkable?
Ames is more walkable than 88% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 7.9 out of 20, and 20% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ames without a car?
6% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Ames, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ames
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.