Calmar Passenger Depot · Photo: Karen Noecker · CC BY-SA 3.0Calmar has 0.4 jobs for every working resident, so most commute out
There are 236 jobs in Calmar; 542 of its residents have a job. Jobs and income earn Calmar C+; getting around on foot earns it C−. Home is the office for 4% of workers, against 11% across Iowa.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Calmar apart on work
Calmar’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
On income, poverty and job access, Calmar is better than 36% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Calmar’s grade up ($92,500, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 14% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (0.5%) is left out: Calmar’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Calmar could be anywhere from D to B+.
Where in the region Calmar works
About 30% 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.
How a workday changes Calmar
On a workday 523 residents head out to work, 19 work right here, and 217 people come in from elsewhere.
About 790 people are in Calmar on a workday afternoon, 28% fewer than live here.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
20% of working residents work in Decorah
Where Calmar clocks in
20% of workers
6% 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.
What Calmar’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Calmar, 2013 → 2023: 216 → 236. 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 Calmar’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Time on the road from Calmar: about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Calmar workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 516 commuters (the 4% 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.
Driving is how Calmar gets around
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Calmar is more walkable than 25% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 2.0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.4% across Iowa, on an EPA index of 4.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 536 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). 3.0% of Calmar households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Calmar’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Calmar ranks: 1,810th of 3,771 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 70 | University Heights IA | 1,177 | $111K | 14.5% | 1.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 83 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 155 | Gilbert IA | 1,389 | $123K | 3.4% | 4.1% | 8% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 1,808 | Orange VT | 1,071 | $71K | 7.6% | 4.7% | 1% | C+ |
| 1,809 | Innovation VA | 1,034 | $32K | 11.9% | 14.2% | 3% | C+ |
| 1,810 | Calmar IA | 1,098 | $93K | 12.5% | 0.5% | 4% | C+ |
| 1,811 | Mantachie MS | 1,143 | $66K | 13.0% | 4.1% | 7% | C+ |
| 1,812 | Pershing Township IN | 1,362 | $73K | 9.8% | 6.7% | <1% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,771 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 0% | 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 Calmar, the top three, the last and three more from Iowa.
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 Calmar: questions
What is the median household income in Calmar?
$92,500 (±$35,338) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Calmar?
12.5%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Calmar?
21 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Calmar work?
4% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Decorah (20%, 9 mi), Cresco (6%, 18 mi), New Hampton (3%, 24 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Calmar walkable?
Calmar is more walkable than 25% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 4.7 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Calmar without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 3% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Calmar, from the people who make the trip.
More of Calmar
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.