Photo: Tedder · CC BY 4.0Maroa has 0.3 jobs for every working resident, so most commute out
Employers in Maroa report 206 jobs for 644 working residents. Maroa grades B for jobs and income and C for walkability. Working from home is the commute for 7% of workers, against 16% across Illinois.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Maroa apart on work
38% of Maroa works in Decatur
246 working residents, 38%, have their main job in Decatur, 13 miles away. That’s 6 times as many as work in Maroa itself. The commute map ↓
Commutes from Maroa are quick
The average trip to work takes 23 minutes, against 28 across Illinois. That’s about 38 hours a year less on the road than the typical Illinois worker. Time on the road ↓
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 644 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Income, poverty and work: Maroa’s grade explained
On income, poverty and job access, Maroa is better than 56% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Maroa’s grade up (6.8%, U.S. 12.5%); household income pulls it down ($72,500, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (5.3%) is left out: Maroa’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, Maroa could be anywhere from C+ to B+.
38% of working residents work in Decatur
Where Maroa clocks in
5% of workers
5% 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.
About 23 minutes each way, quicker than most of Illinois
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Maroa workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 678 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.
Maroa by day and by night
On a workday 605 residents head out to work, 39 work right here, and 167 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,100 people are in Maroa on a workday afternoon, 29% 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.
What Maroa’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Maroa, 2013 → 2023: 209 → 206. 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 Maroa’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How many miles Maroa commutes
About 19% 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.
For most of Maroa, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Maroa is more walkable than 26% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 1.9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 10.8% across Illinois, on an EPA index of 4.9.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 726 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). 4.1% of Maroa households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Maroa’s commuters take a bus or train.
1,616th of 5,397: where Maroa ranks among U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 24 | Tower Lakes IL | 1,201 | $154K | 2.0% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 27 | Third Lake IL | 1,103 | $150K | 2.0% | 2.3% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 37 | Bannockburn IL | 1,308 | $214K | 5.1% | 1.8% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,614 | Charlotte Park FL | 1,966 | $60K | 3.7% | 4.2% | <1% | B |
| 1,615 | Franklin ID | 1,155 | $82K | 3.6% | 6.2% | 3% | B |
| 1,616 | Maroa IL | 1,517 | $73K | 6.8% | 5.3% | 6% | B |
| 1,617 | Dayton IN | 1,368 | $78K | 12.1% | 2.2% | 1% | B |
| 1,618 | Shabbona Township IL | 1,331 | $81K | 8.4% | 7.3% | 5% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 5,397 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 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 Maroa, 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 Maroa: questions
What is the median household income in Maroa?
$72,500 (±$11,515) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Maroa?
6.8%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Maroa?
23 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Maroa work?
6% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Decatur (38%, 12 mi), Springfield (5%, 40 mi), Clinton (5%, 8 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Maroa walkable?
Maroa is more walkable than 26% of U.S. towns (Walkability C): an EPA walkability index of 4.9 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Maroa without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Maroa, from the people who make the trip.
More of Maroa
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.