Photo: Huwmanbeing · CC BY-SA 4.0Where Forrest earns its living
6% of workers work from home, against 16% across Illinois. For jobs and income Forrest is better than 35% of U.S. towns (C+); for walkability it is more walkable than 60% of U.S. towns (B). About one in ten stay in Forrest for work; outside it, Fairbury is the main destination (10%, 6 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Forrest: the gist
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Forrest
The poverty rate holds Forrest’s grade up (10.0%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 24% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (2.2%) is left out: Forrest’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, Forrest could be anywhere from C− to B.
Goods, not services: 48% of the jobs in Forrest
557 jobs are based in Forrest.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Forrest, 2013 → 2023: 462 → 557. 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 Forrest’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who commutes out of Forrest, and who commutes in
On a workday 458 residents head out to work, 47 work right here, and 510 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 (1.10 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 Forrest’s working residents head each day
Where Forrest clocks in
10% of workers
7% of workers
4% 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.
Commuting from Forrest: about 26 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Forrest workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 462 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.
How many miles Forrest commutes
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.
Forrest is a driving town
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 490 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). 0.7% of Forrest households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Forrest’s commuters take a bus or train.
Forrest places 1,527th of 3,133 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 19 | Tower Lakes IL | 1,201 | $154K | 2.0% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| 20 | Third Lake IL | 1,103 | $150K | 2.0% | 2.3% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 24 | Lily Lake IL | 1,073 | $140K | 0.2% | 8.9% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,525 | Junius NY | 1,364 | $77K | 13.0% | 2.3% | 2% | C+ |
| 1,526 | Little Black WI | 1,145 | $69K | 8.1% | 0.4% | 4% | C+ |
| 1,527 | Forrest IL | 1,015 | $73K | 10.0% | 2.2% | 9% | C+ |
| 1,528 | Akron IN | 1,102 | $59K | 7.3% | 8.5% | 8% | C+ |
| 1,529 | Brevator Township MN | 1,221 | $85K | 15.7% | 6.7% | 1% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,133 | 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 Forrest, 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 Forrest: questions
What is the median household income in Forrest?
$73,426 (±$6,503) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Forrest?
10.0%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Forrest?
26 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Forrest work?
9% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Fairbury (10%, 6 mi), Pontiac (7%, 15 mi), Bloomington (4%, 35 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Forrest walkable?
Forrest is more walkable than 60% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 7.6 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Forrest without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 1% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Forrest, from the people who make the trip.
More of Forrest
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.