Photo: Nyttend · Public domainMost of Brooks commutes out: there are 0.4 jobs for every working resident
Jobs and income earn Brooks D; getting around on foot earns it B−. Employers in Brooks report 151 jobs; 370 of its residents have a job. Measured by household income, Brooks is behind 75% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Brooks and work: the main findings
How Brooks earns its Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Brooks is better than 8% of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Brooks’ grade.
Unemployment (4.4%) is left out: Brooks’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, Brooks could be anywhere from D− to C.
28% of working residents work in Belfast
Where Brooks clocks in
28% of workers
9% 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.
The daily flow of workers through Brooks
On a workday 364 residents head out to work, 6 work right here, and 145 people come in from elsewhere.
About 800 people are in Brooks on a workday afternoon, 21% fewer than live here.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Jobs in Brooks: what the 151 are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Brooks, 2013 → 2023: 53 → 151. 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 Brooks’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 25 minutes each way, about the ME average
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Brooks workers work from home, vs 16% across Maine. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 471 commuters (the 15% who work from home are left out). Across Maine: 84% 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Brooks
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.
The commute in Brooks is mostly behind the wheel
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Brooks is more walkable than 51% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 4.2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.0% across Maine, on an EPA index of 5.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 551 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). 5.0% of Brooks households have no vehicle (Maine 6.8%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Brooks’ commuters take a bus or train.
Brooks places 2,667th 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 467 | Edgecomb ME | 1,214 | $109K | 5.6% | 3.1% | 3% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 730 | Georgetown ME | 1,101 | $84K | 6.3% | 3.5% | 4% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 818 | Wayne ME | 1,167 | $93K | 7.9% | 1.3% | 4% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 2,665 | Brilliant OH | 1,213 | $44K | 16.2% | 4.3% | 3% | D |
| 2,666 | Republic WA | 1,016 | $60K | 16.4% | 17.0% | 42% | D |
| 2,667 | Brooks ME | 1,023 | $59K | 19.1% | 4.4% | 2% | D |
| 2,668 | Brownville ME | 1,153 | $64K | 18.3% | 11.6% | 12% | D |
| 2,669 | Sibley LA | 1,068 | $42K | 24.2% | 2.4% | 2% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 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 Brooks, the top three, the last and three more from Maine.
Work in the towns next to Brooks
The biggest share goes to Waldo (2%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Brooks workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brooks | – | D | B− | 25 min | $59,130 |
| Knox | under 2% | — | — | 30 min | — |
| Monroe | under 2% | — | — | 32 min | — |
| Waldo | 2% | — | — | 20 min | — |
| Jackson | under 2% | — | — | 35 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Knox, Waldo and Jackson: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Monroe: not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Brooks’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
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 Brooks: questions
What is the median household income in Brooks?
$59,130 (±$10,115) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,733 across Maine and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Brooks?
19.1%, against 10.7% across Maine and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Brooks?
25 minutes each way on average, against 25 across Maine and 26 nationally. 14% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Brooks work?
2% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Belfast (28%, 9 mi), Bangor (9%, 26 mi), Portland (5%, 82 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Brooks walkable?
Brooks is more walkable than 51% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 5.7 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Brooks without a car?
<1% 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 Brooks, from the people who make the trip.
More of Brooks
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.