Photo: Ian Poellet · CC BY-SA 3.0Okawville’s household incomes are higher than in 61% of U.S. towns
About one in seven stay in Okawville for work; outside it, Nashville is the main destination (10%, 10 miles). 3.5% of residents are in poverty, where Illinois as a whole has 11.8%. Okawville grades A− for jobs and income and B+ for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The work figures that set Okawville apart
Inside Okawville’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Okawville is better than 76% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate is its strongest input; job access by car ranks lowest, though still above most U.S. towns (ahead of 51% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income and job access by car.
Unemployment (7.1%) is left out: Okawville’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, Okawville could be anywhere from B to A.
The kinds of work in Okawville
591 jobs are based in Okawville.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Okawville, 2014 → 2024: 394 → 591. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Okawville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Okawville on a workday afternoon
On a workday 508 residents head out to work, 87 work right here, and 504 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 (0.99 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
Commuting out of Okawville: the destinations
Where Okawville clocks in
10% of workers
6% of workers
6% 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 25 minutes each way for Okawville’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Okawville workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 542 commuters (the 10% 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 from Okawville, by distance
About 15% 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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
For most of Okawville, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Okawville is more walkable than 74% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 13.5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 10.8% across Illinois, on an EPA index of 6.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 605 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). 0.0% of Okawville households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Okawville’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Okawville is 682nd among 5,400 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800
| # | 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% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 28 | Tower Lakes IL | 1,201 | $154K | 2.0% | 2.8% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 31 | Third Lake IL | 1,103 | $150K | 2.0% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 36 | Lily Lake IL | 1,073 | $140K | 0.2% | 8.9% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 680 | Jimmerson Lake IN | 1,024 | $101K | 3.0% | 3.7% | 1% | A− |
| 681 | Pleasant Hills OH | 1,097 | $69K | 5.5% | 4.8% | 0% | A− |
| 682 | Okawville IL | 1,343 | $84K | 3.5% | 7.1% | 15% | A− |
| 683 | Perry Township OH | 1,733 | $92K | 2.6% | 5.7% | <1% | A− |
| 684 | Heidelberg Township PA | 1,770 | $85K | 7.1% | 2.5% | 2% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Okawville, 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 2024, 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 Okawville: questions
What is the median household income in Okawville?
$84,417 (±$17,749) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Okawville?
3.5%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Okawville?
25 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 10% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Okawville work?
15% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Nashville (10%, 10 mi), St. Louis (6%, 40 mi), Belleville (6%, 25 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Okawville walkable?
Okawville is more walkable than 74% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 6.3 out of 20, and 14% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Okawville without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 0% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Okawville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Okawville
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.