Photo: SL93 · CC BY-SA 4.0With 0.5 jobs for every working resident, most of Kingsley works elsewhere
The two grades for Kingsley are C+ for jobs and income and B+ for walkability. Kingsley has 361 jobs, and 712 of its residents work somewhere. About one in ten work in Kingsley itself; outside it, Sioux City draws the most (18%, 22 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Kingsley in brief
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Kingsley
On income, poverty and job access, Kingsley is better than 35% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Kingsley’s grade up (10.0%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 24% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (0.5%) is left out: Kingsley’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, Kingsley could be anywhere from C− to B.
The commute from Kingsley, by distance
About 23% 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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
The workday shuffle in and out of Kingsley
On a workday 649 residents head out to work, 63 work right here, and 298 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,000 people are in Kingsley on a workday afternoon, 26% 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 2024, primary jobs.
The places Kingsley commutes to
Where Kingsley clocks in
18% of workers
17% 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 Kingsley’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Kingsley, 2014 → 2024: 285 → 361. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Kingsley’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Getting to work from Kingsley takes about 22 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Kingsley workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 615 commuters (the 14% 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.
Most trips from Kingsley start in a car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Kingsley is more walkable than 66% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Kingsley 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 717 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). 2.4% of Kingsley households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Kingsley’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 1,000 to 1,900, Kingsley ranks 2,966th of 5,877 on jobs and income
| # | 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% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 115 | University Heights IA | 1,177 | $111K | 14.5% | 1.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 136 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 274 | Slater IA | 1,617 | $98K | 3.8% | 1.1% | 4% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 2,964 | Wagon Wheel AZ | 1,716 | $68K | 7.8% | 5.8% | 2% | C+ |
| 2,965 | Hays NC | 1,053 | $55K | 4.9% | 0.0% | <1% | C+ |
| 2,966 | Kingsley IA | 1,373 | $73K | 10.0% | 0.5% | 9% | C+ |
| 2,967 | Garrison ND | 1,446 | $72K | 6.5% | 0.0% | 19% | C+ |
| 2,968 | Rome Township IL | 1,624 | $62K | 8.1% | 4.1% | 1% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,877 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Kingsley, 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 2024, 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 Kingsley: questions
What is the median household income in Kingsley?
$72,841 (±$8,569) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Kingsley?
10.0%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Kingsley?
22 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 14% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Kingsley work?
9% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Sioux City (18%, 22 mi), Le Mars (17%, 17 mi), Remsen (2%, 16 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Kingsley walkable?
Kingsley is more walkable than 66% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 7.8 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Kingsley without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 2% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Kingsley, from the people who make the trip.
More of Kingsley
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.