Photo: Billwhittaker · CC BY-SA 3.0Making a living in St. Ansgar
A typical one-way commute from St. Ansgar lasts 21 minutes (Iowa 20, U.S. 26). The two grades for St. Ansgar are B− for jobs and income and B+ for walkability. About one in five stay in St. Ansgar for work; outside it, Osage is the main destination (18%, 9 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in St. Ansgar, in a few figures
St. Ansgar’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
On income, poverty and job access, St. Ansgar is better than 52% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds St. Ansgar’s grade up (5.4%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 23% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income.
Unemployment (2.8%) is left out: St. Ansgar’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, St. Ansgar could be anywhere from C+ to B.
St. Ansgar works in goods: 57% of its jobs
730 jobs are based in St. Ansgar.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in St. Ansgar, 2013 → 2023: 573 → 730. 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 St. Ansgar’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How many people are in St. Ansgar by day
On a workday 422 residents head out to work, 104 work right here, and 626 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,400 people are in St. Ansgar on a workday afternoon, 17% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.39 per resident).
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 people from St. Ansgar work
Where St. Ansgar clocks in
18% of workers
6% 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.
St. Ansgar’s commute takes about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of St. Ansgar workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 520 commuters (the 11% 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.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from St. Ansgar
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.
Most of St. Ansgar commutes by car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, St. Ansgar is more walkable than 73% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place St. Ansgar 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 586 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). 3.1% of St. Ansgar households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of St. Ansgar’s commuters take a bus or train.
St. Ansgar places 1,379th of 4,312 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 800 to 1,600
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 83 | University Heights IA | 1,177 | $111K | 14.5% | 1.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 97 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 185 | Gilbert IA | 1,389 | $123K | 3.4% | 4.1% | 8% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 1,377 | Wright NY | 1,519 | $86K | 7.0% | 2.6% | 2% | B− |
| 1,378 | Worth Township PA | 1,357 | $69K | 7.1% | 10.2% | 2% | B− |
| 1,379 | St. Ansgar IA | 1,168 | $76K | 5.4% | 2.8% | 20% | B− |
| 1,380 | Rutherford College NC | 1,220 | $68K | 7.7% | 2.2% | 1% | B− |
| 1,381 | Pleasant Grove Township IL | 1,187 | $77K | 7.2% | 5.7% | <1% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,312 | 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 St. Ansgar, 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 St. Ansgar: questions
What is the median household income in St. Ansgar?
$76,458 (±$8,340) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in St. Ansgar?
5.4%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from St. Ansgar?
21 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 11% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in St. Ansgar work?
20% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Osage (18%, 9 mi), Mason City (6%, 21 mi), Austin (5%, 20 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is St. Ansgar walkable?
St. Ansgar is more walkable than 73% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 8.2 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around St. Ansgar without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 3% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from St. Ansgar, from the people who make the trip.
More of St. Ansgar
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.