Photo: David Wilson · CC BY 2.0Orion’s household incomes are higher than in 72% of U.S. towns
Working from home is the commute for 8% of workers; Illinois has 16%. Below the poverty line: 5.2% of residents (Illinois 11.8%). Orion grades A− for jobs and income and C+ for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Orion: the figures worth knowing
Many jobs in Orion pay little
27% of the jobs based in Orion pay $1,250 a month or less, under $15,000 a year. The jobs ↓
Commutes from Orion 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 779 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
How Orion earns its Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Orion is better than 78% 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 55% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income and job access by car.
Unemployment (3.4%) is left out: Orion’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, Orion could be anywhere from B+ to A.
Jobs in Orion: what the 647 are
647 jobs are based in Orion.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Orion, 2013 → 2023: 518 → 647. 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 Orion’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A commute of about 23 minutes in Orion
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Orion workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 881 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.
Orion by day and by night
On a workday 678 residents head out to work, 101 work right here, and 546 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 (0.83 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.
13% of working residents work in Moline
Where Orion clocks in
13% of workers
10% of workers
10% 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.
The commute from Orion, by distance
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.
In Orion, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Orion is more walkable than 39% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Orion near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 957 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). 5.0% of Orion households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Orion’s commuters take a bus or train.
Orion is 732nd of 5,760 U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,300 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 24 | Tower Lakes IL | 1,201 | $154K | 2.0% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 34 | Bannockburn IL | 1,308 | $214K | 5.1% | 1.8% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 39 | Prestbury IL | 2,045 | $165K | 1.9% | 0.0% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 730 | Denver IA | 1,954 | $92K | 6.7% | 2.0% | 8% | A− |
| 731 | Dunkirk WI | 1,798 | $103K | 8.3% | 1.0% | <1% | A− |
| 732 | Orion IL | 1,708 | $94K | 5.2% | 3.4% | 13% | A− |
| 733 | Milford NE | 2,286 | $83K | 7.2% | 0.3% | 8% | A− |
| 734 | East Hampton NY | 1,552 | $106K | 4.6% | 5.1% | 18% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,760 | 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 Orion, 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 Orion: questions
What is the median household income in Orion?
$94,375 (±$13,368) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Orion?
5.2%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Orion?
23 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Orion work?
13% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Moline (13%, 11 mi), Davenport (10%, 18 mi), Rock Island (10%, 14 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Orion walkable?
Orion is more walkable than 39% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 6.2 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Orion without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Orion, from the people who make the trip.
More of Orion
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.