Scales Mound Historic District · Photo: IvoShandor · CC BY-SA 3.0Work, pay and getting to work in Scales Mound
About one in ten stay in Scales Mound for work; outside it, Galena is the main destination (9%, 10 miles). For 10% of workers, the job is at home, where Illinois as a whole has 16%. A typical one-way commute from Scales Mound lasts 37 minutes (Illinois 28, U.S. 26).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 176 residents head out to work, 16 work right here, and 145 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 (0.84 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.
Where people from Scales Mound work
Where Scales Mound clocks in
9% of workers
8% 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 Scales Mound’s employers do
161 jobs are based in Scales Mound.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Scales Mound, 2013 → 2023: 98 → 161. 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 Scales Mound’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting from Scales Mound: about 37 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 11.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Scales Mound workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 178 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Scales Mound
About 33% 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 Scales Mound: questions
What is the median household income in Scales Mound?
$69,141 (±$9,271) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Scales Mound?
4.3%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Scales Mound?
37 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 10% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Scales Mound work?
8% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Galena (9%, 10 mi), Dubuque (8%, 23 mi), The Galena Territory (4%, 7 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Can you get around Scales Mound without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 2% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Scales Mound, from the people who make the trip.
More of Scales Mound
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.