Photo: Dual Freq · CC BY 2.5Atwood has 0.3 jobs for every working resident, so most commute out
Atwood has 162 jobs, against 513 working residents. Jobs and income earn Atwood C; getting around on foot earns it B−. 8% of workers work from home (Illinois 16%).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The four measures behind Atwood’s grade
On income, poverty and job access, Atwood is better than 30% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Atwood’s grade up (9.4%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 27% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (5.5%) is left out: Atwood’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, Atwood could be anywhere from C− to B−.
A workday in Atwood: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 504 residents head out to work, 9 work right here, and 153 people come in from elsewhere.
About 750 people are in Atwood on a workday afternoon, 32% 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.
12% of working residents work in Arthur
Where Atwood clocks in
12% 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 Atwood
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Atwood, 2013 → 2023: 228 → 162. 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 Atwood’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Getting to work from Atwood takes about 24 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Atwood workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 485 commuters (the 8% who work from home are left out). Across Illinois: 78% drive alone, 7% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Short hops and long hauls from Atwood
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.
For most of Atwood, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Atwood is more walkable than 46% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 6.4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 10.8% across Illinois, on an EPA index of 4.2.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 528 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). 3.7% of Atwood households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Atwood’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500, Atwood ranks 2,082nd of 3,771 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 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 21 | Tower Lakes IL | 1,201 | $154K | 2.0% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 23 | Third Lake IL | 1,103 | $150K | 2.0% | 2.3% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 28 | Lily Lake IL | 1,073 | $140K | 0.2% | 8.9% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,080 | Saline Township OH | 1,120 | $91K | 16.7% | 8.1% | 6% | C |
| 2,081 | Lake Tomahawk WI | 1,162 | $70K | 7.9% | 3.2% | 3% | C |
| 2,082 | Atwood IL | 1,100 | $62K | 9.4% | 5.5% | 2% | C |
| 2,083 | Grass Township IN | 1,120 | $55K | 9.2% | 2.3% | 4% | C |
| 2,084 | Brighton NY | 1,167 | $66K | 6.8% | 7.0% | 6% | 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 Atwood, the top three, the last and three more from Illinois.
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 Atwood: questions
What is the median household income in Atwood?
$62,383 (±$6,467) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Atwood?
9.4%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Atwood?
24 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Atwood work?
2% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Arthur (12%, 6 mi), Bourbon Township (9%, 7 mi), Monticello (8%, 17 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Atwood walkable?
Atwood is more walkable than 46% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 4.2 out of 20, and 6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Atwood 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 Atwood, from the people who make the trip.
More of Atwood
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.