Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainEarning a living in Meade
Commuters spend 17 minutes getting to work on average; the Kansas average is 20, the U.S. 26. Jobs and income earn Meade C+; getting around on foot earns it A. About one in three work in Meade itself; outside it, Dodge City draws the most (6%, 38 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The figures behind Meade’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Meade is better than 39% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Meade’s grade up (6.6%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 7% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (0.0%) is left out: Meade’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, Meade could be anywhere from C− to B.
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 368 residents head out to work, 215 work right here, and 283 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 (0.85 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.
Where Meade’s working residents head each day
Where Meade clocks in
6% of workers
5% 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.
What the 498 jobs in Meade are
498 jobs are based in Meade.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Meade, 2013 → 2023: 406 → 498. 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 Meade’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 17 minutes to work from Meade
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Meade workers work from home, vs 12% across Kansas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 614 commuters (the 7% 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.
How many miles Meade commutes
About 24% 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.
Meade is more walkable than most U.S. towns, with limited transit
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Meade is more walkable than 87% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 11.9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.4% across Kansas, on an EPA index of 8.0.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 658 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). 4.7% of Meade households have no vehicle (Kansas 5.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Meade’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Meade ranks: 2,727th of 5,877 U.S. towns of 1,000 to 1,900
| # | 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 | Lake Quivira KS | 1,005 | $178K | 3.8% | 0.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 57 | Lexington Township KS | 1,512 | $135K | 0.0% | 2.7% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 73 | Westwood KS | 1,720 | $118K | 1.9% | 2.4% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,725 | Red Corral CA | 1,096 | $86K | 7.8% | 6.1% | 1% | C+ |
| 2,726 | Boaz WV | 1,400 | $73K | 10.6% | 1.0% | 1% | C+ |
| 2,727 | Meade KS | 1,422 | $75K | 6.6% | 0.0% | 37% | C+ |
| 2,728 | Holliday TX | 1,733 | $63K | 8.7% | 5.5% | 4% | C+ |
| 2,729 | Etna Township IN | 1,504 | $59K | 8.9% | 0.0% | 2% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,877 | 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 Meade, 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 Meade: questions
What is the median household income in Meade?
$75,321 (±$10,377) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,275 across Kansas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Meade?
6.6%, against 11.3% across Kansas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Meade?
17 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Kansas and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Meade work?
37% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dodge City (6%, 38 mi), Fowler (5%, 11 mi), Liberal (5%, 36 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Meade walkable?
Meade is more walkable than 87% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.0 out of 20, and 12% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Meade without a car?
0% 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 Meade, from the people who make the trip.
More of Meade
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.