Photo: Charles Nixon / FortepanIowa · CC BY-SA 4.0Jobs and the daily commute in Coon Rapids
Working residents average 21 minutes each way, next to 20 for Iowa and 26 for the U.S. Coon Rapids grades C− for jobs and income and C for walkability. About one in five work in Coon Rapids itself; outside it, Carroll draws the most (16%, 17 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Coon Rapids, in brief
Inside Coon Rapids’ Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Coon Rapids is better than 21% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Coon Rapids’ grade up ($76,012, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 9% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (2.0%) is left out: Coon Rapids’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, Coon Rapids could be anywhere from D to C.
How far Coon Rapids goes to work
About 31% 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 daily commute in and out of Coon Rapids
On a workday 501 residents head out to work, 134 work right here, and 251 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,000 people are in Coon Rapids on a workday afternoon, 20% fewer than live here.
0.61 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute 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.
Where people from Coon Rapids work
Where Coon Rapids clocks in
16% of workers
2% of workers
2% 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 the 385 jobs in Coon Rapids are
385 jobs are based in Coon Rapids.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Coon Rapids, 2013 → 2023: 495 → 385. 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 Coon Rapids’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A commute of about 21 minutes in Coon Rapids
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Coon Rapids workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 679 commuters (the 9% 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.
In Coon Rapids, most people drive to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Coon Rapids is more walkable than 35% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Coon Rapids near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 750 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). 5.7% of Coon Rapids households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Coon Rapids’ commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Coon Rapids is 3,279th among 4,866 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,700
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 94 | University Heights IA | 1,177 | $111K | 14.5% | 1.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 110 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 213 | Slater IA | 1,617 | $98K | 3.8% | 1.1% | 4% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 3,277 | Deerfield Township OH | 1,059 | $79K | 22.3% | 2.4% | <1% | C− |
| 3,278 | Mancos CO | 1,266 | $66K | 10.7% | 2.4% | 21% | C− |
| 3,279 | Coon Rapids IA | 1,251 | $76K | 14.6% | 2.0% | 21% | C− |
| 3,280 | Wyanet Township IL | 1,201 | $63K | 14.2% | 2.6% | 3% | C− |
| 3,281 | Elk Township PA | 1,399 | $55K | 9.9% | 4.6% | 1% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | 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 Coon Rapids, 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 Coon Rapids: questions
What is the median household income in Coon Rapids?
$76,012 (±$8,038) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Coon Rapids?
14.6%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Coon Rapids?
21 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 10% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Coon Rapids work?
21% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Carroll (16%, 17 mi), Omaha (2%, 83 mi), Jefferson (2%, 18 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Coon Rapids walkable?
Coon Rapids is more walkable than 35% of U.S. towns (Walkability C): an EPA walkability index of 6.0 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Coon Rapids without a car?
0% 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 Coon Rapids, from the people who make the trip.
More of Coon Rapids
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.