Liberty Courthouse Square Historic District · Photo: Nyttend · Public domainLiberty’s household incomes are lower than in 92% of U.S. towns
Liberty grades D for jobs and income and B for walkability. 18.7% of residents live below the poverty line (Indiana 12.3%). 1% of workers work from home, where Indiana as a whole has 11%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Liberty, in a few figures
Many jobs in Liberty pay little
31% of the jobs based in Liberty pay $1,250 a month or less, under $15,000 a year. The jobs ↓
Few Liberty workers work from home
Only 1% of workers work from home, against 11% across Indiana. Almost everyone here travels to a job. Time on the road ↓
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 787 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Where Liberty’s Jobs & income grade comes from
On income, poverty and job access, Liberty is better than 12% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Liberty’s grade up (ahead of 39% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($45,500, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (3.6%) is left out: Liberty’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, Liberty could be anywhere from D to C.
What Liberty’s employers do
715 jobs are based in Liberty.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Liberty, 2013 → 2023: 785 → 715. 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 Liberty’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 28 minutes to work from Liberty
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Liberty workers work from home, vs 11% across Indiana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 884 commuters (the 1% 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.
A workday in Liberty: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 674 residents head out to work, 113 work right here, and 602 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 (0.91 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.
19% of working residents work in Richmond
Where Liberty clocks in
8% 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Liberty
About 25% 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.
For most of Liberty, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Liberty is more walkable than 56% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 1.5% of 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 894 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). 5.4% of Liberty households have no vehicle (Indiana 6.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Liberty’s commuters take a bus or train.
Liberty is 4,559th of 5,509 U.S. towns of 1,400 to 2,700 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 7 | Meridian Hills IN | 1,800 | $212K | 0.8% | 3.6% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 114 | Galena IN | 1,549 | $128K | 1.8% | 4.8% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 169 | Foxcliff Estates IN | 1,674 | $142K | 2.8% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,557 | Patoka Township IN | 1,599 | $60K | 13.5% | 0.0% | 3% | D |
| 4,558 | Greenville ME | 1,743 | $63K | 13.7% | 0.3% | 48% | D |
| 4,559 | Liberty IN | 1,967 | $46K | 18.7% | 3.6% | 14% | D |
| 4,560 | North Judson IN | 1,802 | $55K | 16.2% | 4.7% | 7% | D |
| 4,561 | Phillipsburg KS | 2,225 | $61K | 14.5% | 4.5% | 40% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,509 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Liberty, 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 Liberty: questions
What is the median household income in Liberty?
$45,500 (±$15,171) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $71,957 across Indiana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Liberty?
18.7%, against 12.3% across Indiana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Liberty?
28 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Indiana and 26 nationally. 1% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Liberty work?
14% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Richmond (19%, 14 mi), Indianapolis (8%, 66 mi), Oxford (8%, 13 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Liberty walkable?
Liberty is more walkable than 56% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 8.2 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Liberty without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Liberty, from the people who make the trip.
More of Liberty
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.