Photo: Catherine Palczewski / FortepanIowa · CC BY-SA 4.0Most of Hartley commutes out: there are 0.5 jobs for every working resident
For jobs and income Hartley is better than 17% of U.S. towns (C−); for walkability it is more walkable than 73% of U.S. towns (B+). Employers in Hartley report 380 jobs; 704 of its residents have a job. Measured by household income, Hartley is behind 77% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Hartley’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
The poverty rate holds Hartley’s grade up (12.5%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 18% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (2.5%) is left out: Hartley’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, Hartley could be anywhere from D to C.
How a workday changes Hartley
On a workday 605 residents head out to work, 99 work right here, and 281 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,300 people are in Hartley on a workday afternoon, 21% 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.
9% of working residents work in Spencer
Where Hartley clocks in
Lines 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.
The kinds of work in Hartley
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Hartley, 2013 → 2023: 444 → 380. 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 Hartley’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 21 minutes each way for Hartley’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Hartley workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 738 commuters (the 6% 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.
How far it is to work from Hartley
About 22% 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.
Driving is how Hartley gets around
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 5.3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.4% across Iowa, on an EPA index of 7.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 783 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). 7.3% of Hartley households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Hartley’s commuters take a bus or train.
Hartley places 4,287th of 5,794 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,100
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 123 | University Heights IA | 1,177 | $111K | 14.5% | 1.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 135 | Van Meter IA | 1,978 | $135K | 2.6% | 1.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 142 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,285 | Wright Township MI | 1,600 | $54K | 10.9% | 6.9% | 5% | C− |
| 4,286 | Genesee NY | 1,590 | $66K | 14.1% | 10.3% | 1% | C− |
| 4,287 | Hartley IA | 1,579 | $58K | 12.5% | 2.5% | 14% | C− |
| 4,288 | La Plata MO | 1,251 | $50K | 9.1% | 8.8% | 13% | C− |
| 4,289 | Denton NC | 1,610 | $51K | 14.8% | 8.8% | 8% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,794 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 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 Hartley, 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 Hartley: questions
What is the median household income in Hartley?
$57,656 (±$7,919) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Hartley?
12.5%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Hartley?
21 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Hartley work?
14% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Spencer (9%, 16 mi), Sheldon (8%, 18 mi), Sanborn (4%, 9 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Hartley walkable?
Hartley is more walkable than 73% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 7.3 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Hartley without a car?
1% 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 Hartley, from the people who make the trip.
More of Hartley
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.