Photo: Daniel Schwen · CC BY-SA 4.0With 0.3 jobs for every working resident, most of Sidney works elsewhere
Sidney grades B+ for jobs and income and C+ for walkability. 147 jobs are based in Sidney for 485 working residents. Home is the office for 6% of workers (Illinois 16%).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Sidney and work: the main findings
Sidney is a place people come home to
There are 147 jobs based in Sidney, about three for every ten working residents, so almost everyone works somewhere else. On a workday Sidney has about 830 people in it, 29% fewer than live here. Day and night ↓
29% of Sidney works in Champaign
142 working residents, 29%, have their main job in Champaign, 12 miles away. That’s 29 times as many as work in Sidney itself. The commute map ↓
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 485 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
How the Jobs & income grade adds up in Sidney
On income, poverty and job access, Sidney is better than 74% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Sidney’s grade up (4.3%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 46% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income.
Unemployment (4.6%) is left out: Sidney’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, Sidney could be anywhere from B to A−.
The daily flow of workers through Sidney
On a workday 481 residents head out to work, 4 work right here, and 143 people come in from elsewhere.
About 830 people are in Sidney 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.
29% of working residents work in Champaign
Where Sidney clocks in
29% of workers
17% of workers
2% 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 kinds of work in Sidney
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Sidney, 2013 → 2023: 92 → 147. 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 Sidney’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How long Sidney spends getting to work: about 26 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Sidney workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 457 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.
Short hops and long hauls from Sidney
About 22% 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.
Sidney is a driving town
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Sidney is more walkable than 36% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Sidney 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 489 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 0.5% of Sidney households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Sidney’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 800 to 1,600, Sidney ranks 586th of 4,312 on jobs and income
| # | 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% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 23 | Tower Lakes IL | 1,201 | $154K | 2.0% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 25 | Third Lake IL | 1,103 | $150K | 2.0% | 2.3% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 30 | Lily Lake IL | 1,073 | $140K | 0.2% | 8.9% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 584 | Alma Township KS | 1,221 | $101K | 3.9% | 2.3% | 10% | B+ |
| 585 | Lyndhurst VA | 1,309 | $76K | 1.2% | 5.1% | 2% | B+ |
| 586 | Sidney IL | 1,167 | $89K | 4.3% | 4.6% | 1% | B+ |
| 587 | Andalusia IL | 1,175 | $77K | 4.7% | 2.4% | 0% | B+ |
| 588 | Powderly TX | 1,140 | $107K | 1.5% | 5.6% | 3% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,312 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 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 Sidney, 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 Sidney: questions
What is the median household income in Sidney?
$88,618 (±$12,343) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Sidney?
4.3%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Sidney?
26 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Sidney work?
1% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Champaign (29%, 12 mi), Urbana (17%, 9 mi), Homer (2%, 6 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Sidney walkable?
Sidney is more walkable than 36% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 6.0 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Sidney without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 0% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Sidney, from the people who make the trip.
More of Sidney
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.