Photo: Jared Winkler · CC BY-SA 4.0Household incomes in Lenox are lower than in 72% of U.S. towns
Working from home is the commute for 3% of workers (Iowa 11%). 11.3% of residents live below the poverty line, against 11.1% across Iowa. For jobs and income Lenox is better than 18% of U.S. towns (C−); for walkability it is more walkable than 30% of U.S. towns (C).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Lenox: the gist
Lenox makes and builds things
67% of the jobs based in Lenox are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Lenox residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 41%. The jobs ↓
Lenox is where the jobs are
Lenox has 936 jobs, 1.7 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Lenox has added jobs fast
Jobs based in Lenox went from 610 in 2013 to 936 in 2023, +53%. The jobs ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 557 working residents, small shifts move the shares; a jump in jobs can partly be a big employer changing how it reports its locations.
How the Jobs & income grade adds up in Lenox
The poverty rate holds Lenox’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 10% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (1.2%) is left out: Lenox’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Lenox could be anywhere from D− to B−.
Making and building: 67% of jobs based in Lenox
936 jobs are based in Lenox.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Lenox, 2013 → 2023: 610 → 936. 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 Lenox’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who leaves Lenox for work, and who comes in
On a workday 348 residents head out to work, 209 work right here, and 727 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,700 people are in Lenox on a workday afternoon, 28% more than live here.
1.7 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than 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 the people who work in Lenox live
Where Lenox clocks in
12% of workers
3% 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.
Each way, about 15 minutes from Lenox
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Lenox workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 769 commuters (the 3% 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.
Lenox’s commute, mile by mile
About 28% 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.
Getting around Lenox: mostly by car
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 790 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). 7.6% of Lenox households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Lenox’s commuters take a bus or train.
Lenox next to U.S. towns of 1,000 to 1,800: 3,877th of 5,400 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% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 104 | University Heights IA | 1,177 | $111K | 14.5% | 1.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 123 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 239 | Slater IA | 1,617 | $98K | 3.8% | 1.1% | 4% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 3,875 | Sugar Grove Township PA | 1,542 | $67K | 17.3% | 6.9% | 2% | C− |
| 3,876 | Hawthorne FL | 1,505 | $55K | 15.4% | 1.0% | 3% | C− |
| 3,877 | Lenox IA | 1,364 | $61K | 11.3% | 1.2% | 38% | C− |
| 3,878 | Taylorsville KY | 1,333 | $43K | 28.7% | 2.9% | 8% | C− |
| 3,879 | Union Township IN | 1,532 | $76K | 19.3% | 4.6% | 5% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | 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 Lenox, 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 Lenox: questions
What is the median household income in Lenox?
$61,000 (±$19,063) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Lenox?
11.3%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Lenox?
15 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 3% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Lenox work?
38% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Creston (12%, 16 mi), Clearfield (3%, 7 mi), Des Moines (2%, 68 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Lenox walkable?
Lenox is more walkable than 30% of U.S. towns (Walkability C): an EPA walkability index of 5.9 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Lenox without a car?
<1% of commuters take transit and 8% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Lenox, from the people who make the trip.
More of Lenox
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.