Photo: Omnedon · CC BY-SA 4.0With 0.2 jobs for every working resident, most of Homer works elsewhere
Employers in Homer report 116 jobs, and 471 of its residents work somewhere. The two grades for Homer are B− for jobs and income and C+ for walkability. Home is the office for 8% of workers, against 16% across Illinois.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Homer, in brief
Homer is a place people come home to
There are 116 jobs based in Homer, about three for every ten working residents, so almost everyone works somewhere else. On a workday Homer has about 700 people in it, 34% fewer than live here. Day and night ↓
28% of Homer works in Champaign
134 working residents, 28%, have their main job in Champaign, 18 miles away. That’s 9 times as many as work in Homer itself. The commute map ↓
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 471 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Homer’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
On income, poverty and job access, Homer is better than 50% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Homer’s grade up ($85,875, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 42% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (2.1%) is left out: Homer’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Homer could be anywhere from C− to A−.
Homer on a workday afternoon
On a workday 458 residents head out to work, 13 work right here, and 103 people come in from elsewhere.
About 700 people are in Homer on a workday afternoon, 34% 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.
28% of working residents work in Champaign
Where Homer clocks in
28% of workers
19% 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.
What Homer’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Homer, 2013 → 2023: 187 → 116. 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 Homer’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Each way, about 26 minutes from Homer
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Homer workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 586 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.
How many miles Homer commutes
About 21% 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.
Most trips from Homer start in a car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Homer is more walkable than 36% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 10.8% across Illinois.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 635 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 3.3% of Homer households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Homer’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400, Homer ranks 1,025th of 3,133 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,023 | Madison Township IN | 1,104 | $89K | 7.5% | 0.0% | 1% | B− |
| 1,024 | Lower Augusta Township PA | 1,030 | $75K | 5.9% | 3.2% | <1% | B− |
| 1,025 | Homer IL | 1,050 | $86K | 11.0% | 2.1% | 3% | B− |
| 1,026 | Bolivar Township IN | 1,183 | $75K | 8.9% | 3.3% | 4% | B− |
| 1,027 | Liberty Township IN | 1,106 | $56K | 2.0% | 2.1% | 1% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 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 Homer, 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 Homer: questions
What is the median household income in Homer?
$85,875 (±$21,779) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Homer?
11.0%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Homer?
26 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Homer work?
3% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Champaign (28%, 18 mi), Urbana (19%, 14 mi), Chicago (3%, 126 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Homer walkable?
Homer is more walkable than 36% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 8.4 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Homer without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 3% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Homer, from the people who make the trip.
More of Homer
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.