Photo: ONUnicorn · CC BY-SA 4.0Jobs, income and commuting in Sweetser, IN
Only 2% stay in Sweetser for work; outside it, Marion is the main destination (31%, 6 miles). Sweetser grades C+ for jobs and income and D− for walkability. Commuters spend 22 minutes getting to work on average; Indiana averages 24, the U.S. 26.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Sweetser stands out on work
Why Sweetser gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty and job access, Sweetser is better than 41% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Sweetser’s grade up ($80,625, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 33% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (0.7%) is left out: Sweetser’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, Sweetser could be anywhere from C− to B+.
The towns that employ Sweetser’s residents
Where Sweetser clocks in
31% 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.
A workday in Sweetser: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 345 residents head out to work, 6 work right here, and 253 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.
0.74 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.
Mostly services: health care, schools and offices
259 jobs are based in Sweetser.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Sweetser, 2013 → 2023: 260 → 259. 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 Sweetser’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How long Sweetser spends getting to work: about 22 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Sweetser workers work from home, vs 11% across Indiana. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 538 commuters (the 6% 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.
Sweetser’s commute, mile by mile
About 27% 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.
Getting around Sweetser: mostly by car
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 574 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). 1.5% of Sweetser households have no vehicle (Indiana 6.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Sweetser’s commuters take a bus or train.
Sweetser places 1,337th of 3,133 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 700 to 1,400
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 53 | Ogden Dunes IN | 1,163 | $117K | 3.9% | 2.6% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 84 | Campbell Township IN | 1,172 | $122K | 0.0% | 7.1% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 124 | Long Beach IN | 1,158 | $122K | 3.8% | 2.6% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 1,335 | Mount Morris WI | 1,132 | $73K | 7.3% | 4.5% | 3% | C+ |
| 1,336 | South Wenatchee WA | 1,226 | $64K | 8.8% | 3.3% | <1% | C+ |
| 1,337 | Sweetser IN | 1,069 | $81K | 11.8% | 0.7% | 2% | C+ |
| 1,338 | Camillus NY | 1,258 | $50K | 11.0% | 8.7% | 1% | C+ |
| 1,339 | Edwards Township MI | 1,396 | $72K | 4.8% | 1.7% | 2% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,133 | 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 Sweetser, 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 Sweetser: questions
What is the median household income in Sweetser?
$80,625 (±$9,981) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $71,957 across Indiana and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Sweetser?
11.8%, against 12.3% across Indiana and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Sweetser?
22 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Indiana and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Sweetser work?
2% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Marion (31%, 6 mi), Indianapolis (7%, 58 mi), Fort Wayne (4%, 48 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Sweetser walkable?
Sweetser is more walkable than 2% of U.S. towns (Walkability D−): an EPA walkability index of 3.7 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Sweetser 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 Sweetser, from the people who make the trip.
More of Sweetser
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.