Brown Shoe Company Factory · Photo: Adt1982 · CC BY-SA 3.0Litchfield has lower household incomes than 83% of U.S. towns
Working from home is the commute for 7% of workers; Illinois has 16%. Poverty touches 16.3% of residents, against 11.8% across Illinois. For jobs and income Litchfield is better than 15% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 85% of U.S. towns (A−).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Litchfield: the gist
Income, poverty and work: Litchfield’s grade explained
Job access by car holds Litchfield’s grade up (ahead of 33% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($53,958, U.S. $80,734).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Litchfield could be anywhere from D to C+.
The trip to work from Litchfield: about 19 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Litchfield workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 2,912 commuters (the 7% 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 a workday changes Litchfield
On a workday 1,863 residents head out to work, 700 work right here, and 2,585 people come in from elsewhere.
About 7,300 people are in Litchfield on a workday afternoon, 11% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.28 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.
6% of working residents work in Hillsboro
Where Litchfield clocks in
6% of workers
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.
What the 3,285 jobs in Litchfield are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Litchfield, 2013 → 2023: 3,607 → 3,285. 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 Litchfield’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The distance from Litchfield to work
About 28% 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.
Walkable streets, thin transit: Litchfield
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 3,118 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). 9.3% of Litchfield households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Litchfield’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Litchfield is 2,923rd among 3,283 U.S. towns of 4,600 to 8,900
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Glendale MO | 6,060 | $171K | 2.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Norwood NJ | 5,817 | $178K | 2.8% | 0.9% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 10 | South Barrington IL | 5,071 | $222K | 1.0% | 2.0% | 4% | A+ |
| 11 | Long Grove IL | 8,343 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 34 | Northfield IL | 5,632 | $162K | 3.2% | 2.2% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,921 | Castor Township MO | 4,651 | $57K | 14.2% | 6.5% | 10% | D |
| 2,922 | Champlain NY | 5,583 | $60K | 14.2% | 5.7% | 28% | D |
| 2,923 | Litchfield IL | 6,598 | $54K | 16.3% | 6.4% | 27% | D |
| 2,924 | Virginia MN | 8,187 | $52K | 18.0% | 5.6% | 37% | D |
| 2,925 | Trenton MO | 5,557 | $50K | 18.1% | 4.1% | 36% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 3,283 | Shiprock NM | 7,610 | $36K | 34.6% | 14.9% | 14% | 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 Litchfield, the top three, the last and three more from Illinois.
Around Litchfield: the bordering towns
The biggest share goes to South Litchfield Township (1%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Litchfield workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Litchfield | – | D | A− | 19 min | $53,958 |
| North Litchfield Township | under 2% | C+ | A− | 18 min | $72,857 |
| South Litchfield Township | 1% | D | B | 19 min | $37,279 |
| Butler Grove Township | under 2% | — | — | 25 min | — |
| Zanesville Township | under 2% | — | — | 23 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Butler Grove Township and Zanesville Township: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Litchfield’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.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Litchfield: questions
What is the median household income in Litchfield?
$53,958 (±$6,805) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Litchfield?
16.3%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Litchfield?
19 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Litchfield work?
27% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Hillsboro (6%, 10 mi), Springfield (5%, 42 mi), Carlinville (3%, 13 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Litchfield walkable?
Litchfield is more walkable than 85% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 8.3 out of 20, and 7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Litchfield without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 9% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Litchfield, from the people who make the trip.
More of Litchfield
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.