Photo: Chris Flook · CC BY-SA 4.0Households in Dale have lower incomes than those in 71% of U.S. towns
7.6% of residents live below the poverty line, next to 12.3% for Indiana as a whole. Jobs and income earn Dale C+; getting around on foot earns it C. For 3% of workers, the job is at home, against 11% across Indiana.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Dale, in brief
Inside Dale’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Dale is better than 42% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Dale’s grade up; household income pulls it down ($61,953, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (3.0%) is left out: Dale’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, Dale could be anywhere from C− to B.
Factories, building and farms: 44% of the jobs in Dale
982 jobs are based in Dale.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Dale, 2013 → 2023: 1,093 → 982. 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 Dale’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who commutes out of Dale, and who commutes in
On a workday 612 residents head out to work, 73 work right here, and 909 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,800 people are in Dale on a workday afternoon, 20% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.43 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.
15% of working residents work in Jasper
Where Dale clocks in
15% of workers
9% 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.
Getting to work from Dale takes about 27 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Dale workers work from home, vs 11% across Indiana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 620 commuters (the 3% who work from home are left out). Across Indiana: 85% drive alone, 1% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
How many miles Dale commutes
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.
For most of Dale, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Dale is more walkable than 29% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 3.3% across Indiana.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 637 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). 2.9% of Dale households have no vehicle (Indiana 6.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Dale’s commuters take a bus or train.
Dale is 2,415th of 5,397 U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,000 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 7 | Meridian Hills IN | 1,800 | $212K | 0.8% | 3.6% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 97 | Galena IN | 1,549 | $128K | 1.8% | 4.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 107 | Ogden Dunes IN | 1,163 | $117K | 3.9% | 2.6% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,413 | Bolinas CA | 1,334 | $101K | 9.1% | 2.6% | 13% | C+ |
| 2,414 | El Valle de Arroyo Seco NM | 1,293 | $68K | 6.5% | 0.0% | 1% | C+ |
| 2,415 | Dale IN | 1,517 | $62K | 7.6% | 3.0% | 11% | C+ |
| 2,416 | Leetonia OH | 1,769 | $62K | 11.8% | 8.4% | 3% | C+ |
| 2,417 | Edgington Township IL | 1,403 | $85K | 19.1% | 3.9% | 4% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,397 | 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 Dale, the top three, the last and three more from Indiana.
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 Dale: questions
What is the median household income in Dale?
$61,953 (±$7,827) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $71,957 across Indiana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Dale?
7.6%, against 12.3% across Indiana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Dale?
27 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Indiana and 26 nationally. 3% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Dale work?
11% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Jasper (15%, 15 mi), Ferdinand (9%, 7 mi), Evansville (7%, 33 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Dale walkable?
Dale is more walkable than 29% of U.S. towns (Walkability C): an EPA walkability index of 7.6 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Dale without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 3% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Dale, from the people who make the trip.
More of Dale
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.