Star-Clipper-Canfield Building and Winding Stairway · Photo: Dan Breyfogle · CC BY-SA 3.0Traer has fewer jobs than working residents: 0.6 for each
Traer has 459 jobs, and 804 of its residents work somewhere. The two grades for Traer are C+ for jobs and income and A− for walkability. About one in seven work in Traer itself; outside it, Waterloo draws the most (19%, 22 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
How the Jobs & income grade adds up in Traer
On income, poverty and job access, Traer is better than 41% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Traer’s grade up ($76,406, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 36% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (3.5%) is left out: Traer’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, Traer could be anywhere from C− to B.
A workday in Traer: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 680 residents head out to work, 124 work right here, and 335 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,200 people are in Traer on a workday afternoon, 22% 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.
Where people from Traer work
Where Traer clocks in
19% of workers
8% 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 Traer
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Traer, 2013 → 2023: 472 → 459. 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 Traer’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How long Traer spends getting to work: about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Traer workers work from home, vs 11% across Iowa. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 757 commuters (the 7% 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 Traer commutes less than 22 miles
About 27% 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.
In Traer, walking beats the bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Traer is more walkable than 82% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 3.8% 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 812 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). 4.0% of Traer households have no vehicle (Iowa 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Traer’s commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 5,794 U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,100, Traer comes 2,683rd 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 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 123 | University Heights IA | 1,177 | $111K | 14.5% | 1.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 135 | Van Meter IA | 1,978 | $135K | 2.6% | 1.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 142 | Walford IA | 1,359 | $129K | 1.1% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,681 | Rockwell Place TX | 2,016 | $57K | 10.2% | 0.0% | 1% | C+ |
| 2,682 | South Wenatchee WA | 1,226 | $64K | 8.8% | 3.3% | <1% | C+ |
| 2,683 | Traer IA | 1,555 | $76K | 11.2% | 3.5% | 15% | C+ |
| 2,684 | Camillus NY | 1,258 | $50K | 11.0% | 8.7% | 1% | C+ |
| 2,685 | Edwards Township MI | 1,396 | $72K | 4.8% | 1.7% | 2% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,794 | 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 Traer, 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 Traer: questions
What is the median household income in Traer?
$76,406 (±$11,772) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,059 across Iowa and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Traer?
11.2%, against 11.1% across Iowa and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Traer?
21 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Iowa and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Traer work?
15% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Waterloo (19%, 22 mi), Cedar Falls (8%, 23 mi), Des Moines (4%, 73 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Traer walkable?
Traer is more walkable than 82% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 10.1 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Traer without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Traer, from the people who make the trip.
More of Traer
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.