Mermaid House Hotel · Photo: Robert Lawton · CC BY-SA 2.5Lebanon is a college town: 30% of residents are students
23% of workers work from home (Illinois 16%). For jobs and income Lebanon is better than 62% of U.S. towns (B); for walkability it is more walkable than 66% of U.S. towns (B+). About one in ten work in Lebanon itself; outside it, St. Louis draws the most (9%, 24 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Lebanon stands out on work
The figures behind Lebanon’s Jobs & income grade
Job access by car holds Lebanon’s grade up (ahead of 77% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (12.6%, U.S. 11.9%). It also does well on family income.
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (18% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 12.6%, against 14.8% for all residents. Unemployment (2.0%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($99,416), since student households pull the household median down ($88,750).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Lebanon could be anywhere from C+ to A.
How many miles Lebanon commutes
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.
The daily commute in and out of Lebanon
On a workday 1,698 residents head out to work, 151 work right here, and 1,052 people come in from elsewhere.
About 4,200 people are in Lebanon on a workday afternoon, 13% fewer than live here.
0.65 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute out.
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 Lebanon’s working residents head each day
Where Lebanon clocks in
9% of workers
8% of workers
7% 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 work there is in Lebanon: 1,203 jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Lebanon, 2013 → 2023: 1,532 → 1,203. 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 Lebanon’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The trip to work from Lebanon: about 24 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Lebanon workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,826 commuters (the 23% 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.
The commute in Lebanon is mostly behind the wheel
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 1.4% of 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 2,372 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 64% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 64% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about 2.2 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 70% 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). 9.8% of Lebanon households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Lebanon’s commuters take a bus or train.
1,610th of 3,840: where Lebanon ranks among U.S. towns of 3,400 to 6,600
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riverwoods IL | 3,766 | $249K | 0.7% | 0.7% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Mission Hills KS | 3,522 | $250K | 1.2% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 18 | South Barrington IL | 5,071 | $222K | 1.0% | 2.0% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 31 | Deer Park IL | 3,647 | $174K | 1.3% | 2.3% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,608 | La Cienega NM | 3,543 | $85K | 10.0% | 1.5% | 3% | B |
| 1,609 | Ballville OH | 3,929 | $85K | 5.0% | 5.5% | 3% | B |
| 1,610 | Lebanon IL | 4,884 | $89K | 14.8% | 2.0% | 8% | B |
| 1,611 | Lytle TX | 3,626 | $71K | 8.8% | 4.1% | 5% | B |
| 1,612 | Wheatfield Township IN | 4,588 | $80K | 7.5% | 2.3% | 7% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 3,840 | Lake Isabella CA | 4,059 | $27K | 40.7% | 8.6% | 18% | 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 Lebanon, 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.
- Students. 30% 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 Lebanon: questions
What is the median household income in Lebanon?
$88,750 (±$15,480) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Lebanon?
14.8% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 12.6%. Illinois: 11.8%.
How long is the commute from Lebanon?
24 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 23% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Lebanon work?
8% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are St. Louis (9%, 24 mi), O'Fallon (8%, 6 mi), Belleville (7%, 11 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Lebanon walkable?
Lebanon is more walkable than 66% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 11.0 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Lebanon without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 10% of households have no car. 64% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Lebanon, from the people who make the trip.
More of Lebanon
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.