Photo: Nicole Haas, Chicago Legend · CC BY-SA 4.0New Sharon’s household incomes are lower than in 89% of U.S. towns
Below the poverty line: 14.4% of residents, where Iowa as a whole has 11.1%. Jobs and income earn New Sharon D; getting around on foot earns it C. Only 3% stay in New Sharon for work; outside it, Pella is the main destination (20%, 14 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in New Sharon: the figures worth knowing
How the Jobs & income grade adds up in New Sharon
On income, poverty and job access, New Sharon is better than 10% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds New Sharon’s grade up; household income pulls it down ($48,750, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (3.8%) is left out: New Sharon’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, New Sharon could be anywhere from D− to C.
How a workday changes New Sharon
On a workday 587 residents head out to work, 17 work right here, and 91 people come in from elsewhere.
About 750 people are in New Sharon on a workday afternoon, 40% fewer than live here.
0.18 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute 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.
Commuting out of New Sharon: the destinations
Where New Sharon clocks in
20% of workers
10% 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 New Sharon’s employers do
108 jobs are based in New Sharon.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in New Sharon, 2013 → 2023: 116 → 108. 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 New Sharon’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting from New Sharon: about 19 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of New Sharon workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 500 commuters (the 12% 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.
The commute from New Sharon, by distance
About 26% 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.
For most of New Sharon, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, New Sharon is more walkable than 30% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 1.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.4% across Iowa, on an EPA index of 5.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 566 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 1.6% of New Sharon households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of New Sharon’s commuters take a bus or train.
New Sharon next to U.S. towns of 900 to 1,700: 4,000th of 4,866 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 94 | University Heights IA | 1,177 | $111K | 14.5% | 1.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 110 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 213 | Slater IA | 1,617 | $98K | 3.8% | 1.1% | 4% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 3,998 | Patton PA | 1,656 | $48K | 21.8% | 4.8% | 5% | D |
| 3,999 | Perryville AR | 1,408 | $57K | 20.6% | 1.3% | 17% | D |
| 4,000 | New Sharon IA | 1,247 | $49K | 14.4% | 3.8% | 3% | D |
| 4,001 | Philadelphia NY | 1,125 | $70K | 32.5% | 4.4% | 2% | D |
| 4,002 | Point Marion PA | 1,094 | $60K | 25.2% | 1.8% | <1% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | 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 New Sharon, 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 New Sharon: questions
What is the median household income in New Sharon?
$48,750 (±$20,210) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in New Sharon?
14.4%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from New Sharon?
19 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in New Sharon work?
3% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Pella (20%, 14 mi), Oskaloosa (10%, 12 mi), Des Moines (6%, 50 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is New Sharon walkable?
New Sharon is more walkable than 30% of U.S. towns (Walkability C): an EPA walkability index of 5.5 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around New Sharon without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 2% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from New Sharon, from the people who make the trip.
More of New Sharon
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.