Photo: Jerry Huddleston from Hampton, Minnesota, US · CC BY 2.0Households in Stuart earn less than those in 66% of U.S. towns
14.0% of residents are in poverty; Iowa has 11.1%. Jobs and income earn Stuart C; getting around on foot earns it A−. Only 7% work in Stuart itself; outside it, Guthrie Center draws the most (12%, 15 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Stuart at work: what stands out
Stores, warehouses and trucking
45% of the jobs in Stuart are in trade, transport and utilities, against 21% of the jobs its residents hold. The jobs ↓
Young people hold many of the jobs here
33% of the jobs based in Stuart are held by workers 29 or younger, against 27% of Stuart’s own working residents. 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 744 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Why Stuart gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty and job access, Stuart is better than 30% of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Stuart’s grade.
Unemployment (4.7%) is left out: Stuart’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, Stuart could be anywhere from C− to B−.
The 627 jobs based in Stuart
627 jobs are based in Stuart.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Stuart, 2013 → 2023: 567 → 627. 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 Stuart’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Stuart by day and by night
On a workday 689 residents head out to work, 55 work right here, and 572 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 (0.84 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 Stuart’s working residents head each day
Where Stuart clocks in
12% of workers
7% 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 23 minutes from Stuart
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Stuart workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 692 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.
Half of Stuart commutes less than 26 miles
About 18% 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.
Walkable streets, thin transit: Stuart
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Stuart is more walkable than 81% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 8.6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.4% across Iowa, on an EPA index of 7.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 786 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). 9.0% of Stuart households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Stuart’s commuters take a bus or train.
Stuart places 3,406th of 5,656 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 1,300 to 2,500
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 142 | Van Meter IA | 1,978 | $135K | 2.6% | 1.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 148 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 169 | Ely IA | 2,366 | $106K | 2.4% | 1.5% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,404 | Liberty Township PA | 1,395 | $65K | 8.8% | 3.3% | 6% | C |
| 3,405 | Wilsonville AL | 2,015 | $72K | 16.4% | 17.0% | 1% | C |
| 3,406 | Stuart IA | 1,882 | $65K | 14.0% | 4.7% | 7% | C |
| 3,407 | Olivet MI | 1,525 | $55K | 14.6% | 12.8% | 8% | C |
| 3,408 | Swanton VT | 2,380 | $67K | 20.1% | 3.0% | 8% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 5,656 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 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 Stuart, 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 Stuart: questions
What is the median household income in Stuart?
$65,000 (±$11,355) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Stuart?
14.0%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Stuart?
23 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Stuart work?
7% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Guthrie Center (12%, 15 mi), West Des Moines (7%, 28 mi), Des Moines (6%, 37 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Stuart walkable?
Stuart is more walkable than 81% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.5 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Stuart without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 9% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Stuart, from the people who make the trip.
More of Stuart
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.