Photo: Brian Hall · CC BY-SA 3.0For about half of its working residents, Rossville is a commute to Topeka
Measured by household income, Rossville is behind 82% of U.S. towns. For jobs and income Rossville is better than 33% of U.S. towns (C); for walkability it is more walkable than 66% of U.S. towns (B+). Only 3% work in Rossville itself; outside it, Topeka draws the most (50%, 15 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What stands out about work in Rossville
Rossville’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
The poverty rate holds Rossville’s grade up (8.3%, U.S. 12.5%); household income pulls it down ($54,318, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (8.8%) is left out: Rossville’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Rossville could be anywhere from D to B.
Out of Rossville to work: where people go
Where Rossville clocks in
50% of workers
6% 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.
The daily flow of workers through Rossville
On a workday 475 residents head out to work, 14 work right here, and 232 people come in from elsewhere.
About 850 people are in Rossville on a workday afternoon, 22% fewer than live here.
0.50 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 2024, primary jobs.
What Rossville’s employers do
246 jobs are based in Rossville.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Rossville, 2014 → 2024: 203 → 246. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Rossville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
From Rossville, about 19 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Rossville workers work from home, vs 12% across Kansas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 450 commuters (the 6% 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.
Miles to work from Rossville
About 15% 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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
In Rossville, the car does most of the work
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 11.6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.4% across Kansas, on an EPA index of 5.6.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 477 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). 6.2% of Rossville households have no vehicle (Kansas 5.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Rossville’s commuters take a bus or train.
Rossville is 1,943rd of 3,771 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500 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 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 37 | Lake Quivira KS | 1,005 | $178K | 3.8% | 0.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 72 | Delaware Township KS | 1,121 | $119K | 2.4% | 0.0% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 86 | Kanwaka Township KS | 1,493 | $126K | 2.5% | 1.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,941 | Auburn Township OH | 1,105 | $77K | 15.7% | 0.0% | 2% | C |
| 1,942 | Buffington Township PA | 1,218 | $66K | 9.6% | 14.9% | 3% | C |
| 1,943 | Rossville KS | 1,088 | $54K | 8.3% | 8.8% | 3% | C |
| 1,944 | Clara City MN | 1,397 | $64K | 7.3% | 2.2% | 14% | C |
| 1,945 | Nevis Township MN | 1,179 | $70K | 6.7% | 2.3% | 2% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 3,771 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Rossville, 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 2024, 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 Rossville: questions
What is the median household income in Rossville?
$54,318 (±$6,365) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,275 across Kansas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Rossville?
8.3%, against 11.3% across Kansas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Rossville?
19 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Kansas and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Rossville work?
3% work in town.
Is Rossville walkable?
Rossville is more walkable than 66% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 5.6 out of 20, and 12% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Rossville without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Rossville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Rossville
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.