Photo: Pettingills · CC BY-SA 3.0Households in Pocahontas earn less than those in 64% of U.S. towns
Poverty touches 8.7% of residents, next to 11.1% for Iowa as a whole. For jobs and income Pocahontas is better than 28% of U.S. towns (C); for walkability it is more walkable than 58% of U.S. towns (B). Working from home is the commute for 3% of workers; Iowa has 11%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The work figures that set Pocahontas apart
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Pocahontas
The poverty rate holds Pocahontas’ grade up; job access by car pulls it down.
Unemployment (4.1%) is left out: Pocahontas’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, Pocahontas could be anywhere from D to B−.
From Pocahontas, about 14 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Pocahontas workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 792 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.
How many people are in Pocahontas by day
On a workday 511 residents head out to work, 236 work right here, and 666 people come in from elsewhere.
About as many people by day as by night: the people who leave are replaced by the people who come in.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.21 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
5% of working residents work in Laurens
Where Pocahontas clocks in
5% of workers
5% 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.
The kinds of work in Pocahontas
902 jobs are based in Pocahontas.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Pocahontas, 2014 → 2024: 913 → 902. 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 Pocahontas’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Pocahontas’ commute, mile by mile
About 24% 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.
In Pocahontas, the car does most of the work
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 1.3% 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 816 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). 4.8% of Pocahontas households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Pocahontas’ commuters take a bus or train.
How Pocahontas ranks: 3,333rd of 5,343 U.S. towns of 1,300 to 2,400
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 1% | A+ |
| 2 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 136 | Van Meter IA | 1,978 | $135K | 2.6% | 1.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 142 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 163 | Ely IA | 2,366 | $106K | 2.4% | 1.5% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,331 | East Taylor Township PA | 2,344 | $70K | 10.8% | 10.1% | 5% | C |
| 3,332 | Prophetstown IL | 1,887 | $65K | 11.7% | 7.2% | 17% | C |
| 3,333 | Pocahontas IA | 1,803 | $67K | 8.7% | 4.1% | 32% | C |
| 3,334 | Syracuse KS | 1,810 | $67K | 7.7% | 4.1% | 34% | C |
| 3,335 | Hayfield MN | 1,358 | $69K | 15.9% | 2.6% | 9% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 5,343 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 7% | 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 Pocahontas, 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 Pocahontas: questions
What is the median household income in Pocahontas?
$66,574 (±$12,348) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Pocahontas?
8.7%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Pocahontas?
14 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 3% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Pocahontas work?
32% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Laurens (5%, 12 mi), Fort Dodge (5%, 30 mi), Humboldt (5%, 22 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Pocahontas walkable?
Pocahontas is more walkable than 58% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 8.7 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Pocahontas without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Pocahontas, from the people who make the trip.
More of Pocahontas
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.