Eagle Grove Public Library · Photo: Ann Sullivan-Larson · CC BY-SA 3.0At 1.1%, unemployment in Eagle Grove is lower than in 94% of U.S. towns
About one in four stay in Eagle Grove for work; outside it, Fort Dodge is the main destination (7%, 18 miles). The two grades for Eagle Grove are C for jobs and income and A− for walkability. Below the poverty line: 30.2% of residents, where Iowa as a whole has 11.1%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Eagle Grove at work: what stands out
What’s behind Eagle Grove’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Eagle Grove is better than 31% of U.S. towns, #109 of 140 in Iowa. Unemployment holds Eagle Grove’s grade up; the poverty rate pulls it down.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Eagle Grove could be anywhere from C− to C+.
Eagle Grove works in goods: 35% of its jobs
1,072 jobs are based in Eagle Grove.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Eagle Grove, 2013 → 2023: 1,134 → 1,072. 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 Eagle Grove’s own residents hold wherever they work.
In and out of Eagle Grove on a workday
On a workday 977 residents head out to work, 413 work right here, and 659 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (0.77 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 Eagle Grove commutes to
Where Eagle Grove clocks in
7% 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.
From Eagle Grove, about 23 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Eagle Grove workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,438 commuters (the 8% 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Eagle Grove
About 20% 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.
In Eagle Grove, walking beats the bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Eagle Grove is more walkable than 75% of U.S. towns, #57 of 140 in Iowa. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 6.7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.4% across Iowa, on an EPA index of 7.2.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 1,569 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). 7.0% of Eagle Grove households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Eagle Grove’s commuters take a bus or train.
Eagle Grove is 2,971st of 4,210 U.S. towns of 2,600 to 4,900 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riverwoods IL | 3,766 | $249K | 0.7% | 0.7% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Mission Hills KS | 3,522 | $250K | 1.2% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 147 | Solon IA | 3,345 | $113K | 3.2% | 0.9% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 240 | Huxley IA | 4,715 | $112K | 4.5% | 1.3% | 8% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 337 | Fairfax IA | 2,925 | $114K | 6.2% | 1.8% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 2,969 | Bonny Doon CA | 3,149 | $145K | 16.2% | 8.0% | 2% | C |
| 2,970 | Sutter Creek CA | 2,701 | $88K | 7.1% | 9.4% | 4% | C |
| 2,971 | Eagle Grove IA | 3,653 | $63K | 30.2% | 1.1% | 30% | C |
| 2,972 | Estill Springs TN | 2,692 | $59K | 13.6% | 3.9% | 2% | C |
| 2,973 | Fremont Township IN | 2,930 | $67K | 7.6% | 8.7% | 17% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 4,210 | Lake Isabella CA | 4,059 | $27K | 40.7% | 8.6% | 18% | 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 Eagle Grove, 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 Eagle Grove: questions
What is the median household income in Eagle Grove?
$63,125 (±$14,051) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Eagle Grove?
30.2%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Eagle Grove?
23 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Eagle Grove work?
30% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Fort Dodge (7%, 18 mi), Clarion (6%, 10 mi), Webster City (4%, 15 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Eagle Grove walkable?
Eagle Grove is more walkable than 75% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.2 out of 20, and 7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Eagle Grove without a car?
0% 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 Eagle Grove, from the people who make the trip.
More of Eagle Grove
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.