Photo: Jared Winkler · CC BY-SA 4.0With 0.4 jobs for every working resident, most of Sloan works elsewhere
There are 196 jobs in Sloan, and 465 of its residents work somewhere. The two grades for Sloan are C for jobs and income and B+ for walkability. Only 7% stay in Sloan for work; outside it, Sioux City is the main destination (35%, 20 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Sloan: the gist
What’s behind Sloan’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Sloan is better than 27% of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Sloan’s grade.
Unemployment (8.4%) is left out: Sloan’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, Sloan could be anywhere from D to B+.
Commuting out of Sloan: the destinations
Where Sloan clocks in
35% 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 daily flow of workers through Sloan
On a workday 431 residents head out to work, 34 work right here, and 162 people come in from elsewhere.
About 810 people are in Sloan on a workday afternoon, 25% 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.
The kinds of work in Sloan
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Sloan, 2013 → 2023: 83 → 196. 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 Sloan’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Getting to work from Sloan takes about 18 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Sloan workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 402 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.
Sloan’s commute, mile by mile
About 15% 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 Sloan: mostly by car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Sloan is more walkable than 71% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 7.0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.4% across Iowa, on an EPA index of 6.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 457 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). 6.2% of Sloan households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Sloan’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Sloan ranks: 2,231st of 3,771 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 70 | University Heights IA | 1,177 | $111K | 14.5% | 1.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 83 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 155 | Gilbert IA | 1,389 | $123K | 3.4% | 4.1% | 8% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 2,229 | Pine Township PA | 1,023 | $56K | 9.6% | 4.5% | 1% | C |
| 2,230 | Clear Lake WA | 1,093 | $72K | 14.0% | 1.9% | 1% | C |
| 2,231 | Sloan IA | 1,078 | $68K | 13.9% | 8.4% | 7% | C |
| 2,232 | Asotin WA | 1,187 | $77K | 10.2% | 3.8% | 6% | C |
| 2,233 | Granville WV | 1,362 | $32K | 45.8% | 11.0% | 4% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 3,771 | 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 Sloan, 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 Sloan: questions
What is the median household income in Sloan?
$68,125 (±$18,357) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Sloan?
13.9%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Sloan?
18 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Sloan work?
7% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Sioux City (35%, 20 mi), South Sioux City (5%, 18 mi), Sergeant Bluff (5%, 13 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Sloan walkable?
Sloan is more walkable than 71% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 6.7 out of 20, and 7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Sloan without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Sloan, from the people who make the trip.
More of Sloan
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.