Photo: Brian Stansberry · CC BY 4.0Household incomes in Zeigler trail those of 95% of U.S. towns
For jobs and income Zeigler is better than 15% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 38% of U.S. towns (C+). The poverty rate is 16.2% (Illinois 11.8%). At home: 5% of workers have no commute at all (Illinois 16%).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Why Zeigler gets the Jobs & income grade it does
Job access by car holds Zeigler’s grade up (ahead of 44% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($41,553, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (10.4%) is left out: Zeigler’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, Zeigler could be anywhere from D to C.
Who leaves Zeigler for work, and who comes in
On a workday 531 residents head out to work, 34 work right here, and 141 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,100 people are in Zeigler on a workday afternoon, 27% fewer than live here.
0.31 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute out.
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 Zeigler goes to work
Where Zeigler clocks in
15% of workers
7% of workers
7% 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.
Mostly services: health care, schools and offices
175 jobs are based in Zeigler.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Zeigler, 2013 → 2023: 94 → 175. 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 Zeigler’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 29 minutes each way, about the IL average
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Zeigler workers work from home, vs 16% across Illinois. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 531 commuters (the 5% 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.
Zeigler’s commute, mile by mile
About 18% 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.
Most trips from Zeigler start in a car
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 3.0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 10.8% across Illinois, on an EPA index of 5.1.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 558 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). 6.7% of Zeigler households have no vehicle (Illinois 11.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Zeigler’s commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 6,308 U.S. towns of 1,000 to 2,000, Zeigler comes 4,796th 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 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 32 | Tower Lakes IL | 1,201 | $154K | 2.0% | 2.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 35 | Third Lake IL | 1,103 | $150K | 2.0% | 2.3% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 40 | Lily Lake IL | 1,073 | $140K | 0.2% | 8.9% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,794 | Stonington ME | 1,058 | $60K | 10.8% | 15.9% | 26% | D |
| 4,795 | Union Township OH | 1,434 | $50K | 17.6% | 13.8% | 1% | D |
| 4,796 | Zeigler IL | 1,456 | $42K | 16.2% | 10.4% | 6% | D |
| 4,797 | Chatsworth IL | 1,156 | $70K | 16.8% | 8.8% | 6% | D |
| 4,798 | Lewisport KY | 1,747 | $56K | 21.3% | 5.0% | 4% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 6,308 | 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 Zeigler, 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 Zeigler: questions
What is the median household income in Zeigler?
$41,553 (±$6,778) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $83,390 across Illinois and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Zeigler?
16.2%, against 11.8% across Illinois and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Zeigler?
29 minutes each way on average, against 28 across Illinois and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Zeigler work?
6% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Marion (15%, 13 mi), Mount Vernon (7%, 29 mi), Carbondale (7%, 16 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Zeigler walkable?
Zeigler is more walkable than 38% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 5.1 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Zeigler without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Zeigler, from the people who make the trip.
More of Zeigler
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.