Photo: Kswx29 · CC BY 3.0Work means Topeka for more than half of Auburn’s working residents
Only 3% work in Auburn; the top destination outside it is Topeka (54%, 11 miles). Jobs and income earn Auburn C+; getting around on foot earns it C. Measured by household income, Auburn is behind 77% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Auburn, in brief
How Auburn earns its Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Auburn is better than 37% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Auburn’s grade up (ahead of 56% of U.S. towns); household income pulls it down ($57,875, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (4.8%) is left out: Auburn’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, Auburn could be anywhere from C− to B+.
Commuting out of Auburn: the destinations
Where Auburn clocks in
54% of workers
3% 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.
Who commutes out of Auburn, and who commutes in
On a workday 543 residents head out to work, 14 work right here, and 196 people come in from elsewhere.
About 930 people are in Auburn on a workday afternoon, 27% fewer than live here.
0.38 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.
Auburn is a services town
210 jobs are based in Auburn.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Auburn, 2013 → 2023: 120 → 210. 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 Auburn’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 24 minutes each way for Auburn’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Auburn workers work from home, vs 12% across Kansas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 491 commuters (the 8% who work from home are left out). Across Kansas: 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.
Short hops and long hauls from Auburn
About 17% 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.
Few in Auburn walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Auburn is more walkable than 30% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Auburn 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 531 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). 11.2% of Auburn households have no vehicle (Kansas 5.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Auburn’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Auburn is 2,334th among 4,866 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,700
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 49 | Lake Quivira KS | 1,005 | $178K | 3.8% | 0.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 52 | Lexington Township KS | 1,512 | $135K | 0.0% | 2.7% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 96 | Delaware Township KS | 1,121 | $119K | 2.4% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,332 | Warren IL | 1,275 | $76K | 9.9% | 2.7% | 11% | C+ |
| 2,333 | Milford IN | 1,686 | $52K | 9.4% | 1.7% | 6% | C+ |
| 2,334 | Auburn KS | 1,272 | $58K | 10.9% | 4.8% | 3% | C+ |
| 2,335 | West Salem OH | 1,430 | $62K | 13.9% | 3.2% | 4% | C+ |
| 2,336 | Franklin Township IN | 1,679 | $85K | 13.3% | 0.4% | 4% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | 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 Auburn, the top three, the last and three more from Kansas.
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 Auburn: questions
What is the median household income in Auburn?
$57,875 (±$23,595) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,275 across Kansas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Auburn?
10.9%, against 11.3% across Kansas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Auburn?
24 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Kansas and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Auburn work?
3% work in town.
Is Auburn walkable?
Auburn is more walkable than 30% of U.S. towns (Walkability C): an EPA walkability index of 6.2 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Auburn without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 11% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Auburn, from the people who make the trip.
More of Auburn
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.