Photo: Johnnie Tran · CC BY-SA 3.0DeKalb is a college town: 26% of residents are students
Measured by family income, DeKalb is behind 83% of U.S. towns. DeKalb grades C for jobs and income and A− for walkability. Home is the office for 6% of workers, against 16% across Illinois.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in DeKalb: the gist
Jobs & income in DeKalb: the grade in detail
On family income, poverty and job access, DeKalb is better than 28% of U.S. towns, #642 of 768 in Illinois. Job access by car holds DeKalb’s grade up (ahead of 71% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (18.7%, U.S. 11.9%).
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (18% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 18.7%, against 24.9% for all residents. Unemployment (10.2%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($68,185), since student households pull the household median down ($46,481).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, DeKalb could be anywhere from C− to C+.
The workday shuffle in and out of DeKalb
On a workday 11,371 residents head out to work, 3,780 work right here, and 10,391 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 (0.94 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.
8% of working residents work in Sycamore
Where DeKalb clocks in
5% of workers
3% 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.
Jobs in DeKalb: what the 14,171 are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in DeKalb, 2013 → 2023: 15,612 → 14,171. 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 DeKalb’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Each way, about 24 minutes from DeKalb
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of DeKalb workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 18,740 commuters (the 6% 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from DeKalb
About 17% 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.
Good to walk, short on transit: DeKalb
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, DeKalb is more walkable than 80% of U.S. towns, #268 of 768 in Illinois. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 9.9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 10.8% across Illinois, on an EPA index of 7.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 20,008 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). 9.9% of DeKalb households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of DeKalb’s commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 1,101 U.S. towns of 28,000 to 55,000, DeKalb comes 959th on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | McLean VA | 49,627 | $250K | 2.9% | 2.3% | 6% | A+ |
| 2 | Southlake TX | 31,175 | $250K | 1.5% | 2.7% | 11% | A+ |
| 3 | Leawood KS | 34,093 | $186K | 3.1% | 2.0% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 6 | West Deerfield Township IL | 32,111 | $205K | 2.7% | 2.7% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 12 | New Lenox IL | 28,893 | $141K | 1.5% | 2.9% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 22 | Bartlett IL | 40,855 | $133K | 4.2% | 2.6% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 957 | Cleveland TN | 51,172 | $59K | 16.7% | 6.0% | 39% | C |
| 958 | Butte-Silver Bow MT | 36,118 | $62K | 14.8% | 4.1% | 63% | C |
| 959 | DeKalb IL | 40,467 | $46K | 24.9% | 10.2% | 25% | C |
| 960 | Hallandale Beach FL | 42,698 | $52K | 19.6% | 7.5% | 7% | C |
| 961 | Rock Island IL | 36,225 | $59K | 21.0% | 6.3% | 23% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 1,101 | Bullhead City AZ | 43,987 | $51K | 18.7% | 11.5% | 26% | 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 DeKalb, the top three, the last and three more from Illinois.
Next door to DeKalb
The biggest share goes to Sycamore (8%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
Darker towns draw more of DeKalb’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
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.
- Students. 26% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in DeKalb: questions
What is the median household income in DeKalb?
$46,481 (±$3,596) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in DeKalb?
24.9% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 18.7%. Illinois: 11.8%.
How long is the commute from DeKalb?
24 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in DeKalb work?
25% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Sycamore (8%, 6 mi), Chicago (5%, 55 mi), Rockford (3%, 28 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is DeKalb walkable?
DeKalb is more walkable than 80% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.3 out of 20, and 10% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around DeKalb without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 10% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from DeKalb, from the people who make the trip.
More of DeKalb
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.