Photo: Corey Coyle · CC BY 3.0Most of Epworth commutes out: there are 0.5 jobs for every working resident
Employers in Epworth report 474 jobs, and 980 of its residents work somewhere. For jobs and income Epworth is better than 69% of U.S. towns (B+); for walkability it is more walkable than 25% of U.S. towns (C). Only 4% stay in Epworth for work; outside it, Dubuque is the main destination (31%, 12 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Epworth in brief
Epworth’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
The poverty rate holds Epworth’s grade up (5.2%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 47% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income.
Unemployment (2.4%) is left out: Epworth’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, Epworth could be anywhere from B− to A−.
Where Epworth’s working residents head each day
Where Epworth clocks in
31% of workers
11% of workers
6% 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.
Epworth on a workday afternoon
On a workday 936 residents head out to work, 44 work right here, and 430 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,500 people are in Epworth on a workday afternoon, 25% 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.
The kinds of work in Epworth
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Epworth, 2013 → 2023: 447 → 474. 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 Epworth’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How long Epworth spends getting to work: about 20 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Epworth workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 837 commuters (the 11% 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.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Epworth
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.
Most trips from Epworth start in a car
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 0.5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 4.4% across Iowa.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 945 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). 3.4% of Epworth households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Epworth’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Epworth is 1,232nd among 5,509 U.S. towns of 1,400 to 2,700
| # | 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 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 141 | Van Meter IA | 1,978 | $135K | 2.6% | 1.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 171 | Ely IA | 2,366 | $106K | 2.4% | 1.5% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 207 | Granger IA | 2,179 | $112K | 3.4% | 2.1% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 1,230 | Kendall NY | 2,577 | $88K | 6.9% | 3.0% | 8% | B+ |
| 1,231 | Lavaca AR | 2,528 | $81K | 5.9% | 3.0% | 4% | B+ |
| 1,232 | Epworth IA | 2,037 | $84K | 5.2% | 2.4% | 4% | B+ |
| 1,233 | Turner OR | 2,412 | $102K | 3.9% | 6.8% | 2% | B+ |
| 1,234 | McDonald PA | 1,994 | $66K | 8.0% | 2.8% | 5% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,509 | 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 Epworth, 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 Epworth: questions
What is the median household income in Epworth?
$84,271 (±$14,796) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Epworth?
5.2%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Epworth?
20 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 11% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Epworth work?
4% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dubuque (31%, 12 mi), Farley (11%, 4 mi), Peosta (6%, 5 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Epworth walkable?
Epworth is more walkable than 25% of U.S. towns (Walkability C): an EPA walkability index of 6.5 out of 20, and <1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Epworth 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 Epworth, from the people who make the trip.
More of Epworth
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.