Photo: User:Visviva · CC BY-SA 4.0With 0.2 jobs for every working resident, most of Palmer works elsewhere
Hardly any work in Palmer; the top destination outside it is Springfield (22%, 26 miles). Palmer has 15 jobs for 93 working residents. Home is the office for 6% of workers; Illinois has 16%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The daily flow of workers through Palmer
On a workday 93 residents head out to work, none work right here, and 15 people come in from elsewhere.
About 120 people are in Palmer on a workday afternoon, 39% 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.
Commuting out of Palmer: the destinations
Where Palmer clocks in
22% of workers
16% 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 Palmer’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
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 Palmer’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Palmer’s commute takes about 24 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Palmer workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 94 commuters (the 6% 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 distance from Palmer to work
About 32% 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.
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 Palmer: questions
What is the median household income in Palmer?
$49,500 (±$18,215) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Palmer?
11.2%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Palmer?
24 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Palmer work?
0% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Springfield (22%, 26 mi), Taylorville (16%, 9 mi), Decatur (8%, 37 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Can you get around Palmer 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 Palmer, from the people who make the trip.
More of Palmer
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.