Photo: 25or6to4 · CC BY-SA 4.0Yates Center has lower household incomes than 94% of U.S. towns
For jobs and income Yates Center is better than 13% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 79% of U.S. towns (A−). 8.8% of residents live below the poverty line (Kansas 11.3%). Working from home is the commute for 2% of workers; Kansas has 12%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Yates Center: the gist
A big share show a job far from home
38% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. How far ↓
Few Yates Center workers work from home
Only 2% of workers work from home, against 12% across Kansas. 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 2024, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 697 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Yates Center
The poverty rate holds Yates Center’s grade up; household income pulls it down ($42,730, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (2.6%) is left out: Yates Center’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, Yates Center could be anywhere from D to C−.
How far Yates Center goes to work
About 38% 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.
About 17 minutes each way, quicker than most of Kansas
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Yates Center workers work from home, vs 12% across Kansas. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 540 commuters (the 2% 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.
Who works in Yates Center, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 543 residents head out to work, 154 work right here, and 289 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,100 people are in Yates Center on a workday afternoon, 19% fewer than live here.
0.64 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.
9% of working residents work in Iola
Where Yates Center clocks in
9% of workers
5% 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 Yates Center’s employers do
443 jobs are based in Yates Center.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Yates Center, 2014 → 2024: 388 → 443. 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 Yates Center’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Yates Center is easy on foot, hard by bus
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 553 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). 6.3% of Yates Center households have no vehicle (Kansas 5.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Yates Center’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Yates Center is 4,173rd among 5,400 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 52 | Lake Quivira KS | 1,005 | $178K | 3.8% | 0.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 56 | Lexington Township KS | 1,512 | $135K | 0.0% | 2.7% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 69 | Westwood KS | 1,720 | $118K | 1.9% | 2.4% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,171 | Le Grand CA | 1,636 | $46K | 16.0% | 13.2% | 9% | D |
| 4,172 | East Griffin GA | 1,174 | $46K | 32.4% | 9.1% | 1% | D |
| 4,173 | Yates Center KS | 1,308 | $43K | 8.8% | 2.6% | 22% | D |
| 4,174 | Cornell WI | 1,443 | $55K | 13.4% | 0.4% | 13% | D |
| 4,175 | Bingham Township MI | 1,597 | $61K | 13.6% | 5.6% | 5% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | 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 Yates Center, 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 Yates Center: questions
What is the median household income in Yates Center?
$42,730 (±$3,455) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,275 across Kansas and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Yates Center?
8.8%, against 11.3% across Kansas and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Yates Center?
17 minutes each way on average, against 20 across Kansas and 26 nationally. 2% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Yates Center work?
22% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Iola (9%, 20 mi), Chanute (5%, 21 mi), Humboldt (5%, 18 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Yates Center walkable?
Yates Center is more walkable than 79% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 8.3 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Yates Center without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Yates Center, from the people who make the trip.
More of Yates Center
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.