Photo: Sugeknight2008 at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0Mars Hill has lower household incomes than 66% of U.S. towns
Home is the office for 7% of workers, next to 16% for Maine as a whole. The poverty rate is 9.6%, where Maine as a whole has 10.7%. About one in five work in Mars Hill itself; outside it, Presque Isle draws the most (28%, 11 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Mars Hill: the figures worth knowing
Mars Hill and Presque Isle trade workers both ways
Presque Isle is the top workplace for Mars Hill residents (28%) and also where the most people who work in Mars Hill come from (17% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
Mars Hill makes and builds things
36% of the jobs based in Mars Hill are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Mars Hill residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 22%. The jobs ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 467 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What’s behind Mars Hill’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Mars Hill is better than 24% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Mars Hill’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 9% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (10.8%) is left out: Mars Hill’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, Mars Hill could be anywhere from D to C+.
Where people from Mars Hill work
Where Mars Hill clocks in
28% 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.
Goods, not services: 36% of the jobs in Mars Hill
642 jobs are based in Mars Hill.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Mars Hill, 2013 → 2023: 718 → 642. 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 Mars Hill’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who works in Mars Hill, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 369 residents head out to work, 98 work right here, and 544 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,500 people are in Mars Hill on a workday afternoon, 13% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.37 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.
A commute of about 21 minutes in Mars Hill
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Mars Hill workers work from home, vs 16% across Maine. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 539 commuters (the 7% 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.
Mars Hill’s commute, mile by mile
About 25% 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.
In Mars Hill, most people drive to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Mars Hill is more walkable than 10% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 5.0% across Maine.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 579 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). 8.1% of Mars Hill households have no vehicle (Maine 6.8%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Mars Hill’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Mars Hill is 3,476th 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% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 428 | Ogunquit ME | 1,606 | $114K | 3.2% | 0.0% | 22% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 460 | Pownal ME | 1,645 | $104K | 5.5% | 0.7% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 894 | Edgecomb ME | 1,214 | $109K | 5.6% | 3.1% | 3% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,474 | Windham OH | 1,675 | $54K | 23.0% | 5.5% | 4% | C− |
| 3,475 | Chesapeake WV | 1,270 | $61K | 21.5% | 2.3% | 1% | C− |
| 3,476 | Mars Hill ME | 1,318 | $65K | 9.6% | 10.8% | 21% | C− |
| 3,477 | Howard NY | 1,351 | $74K | 12.9% | 4.4% | 1% | C− |
| 3,478 | El Rancho NM | 1,451 | $80K | 19.6% | 0.9% | 0% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,400 | 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 Mars Hill, the top three, the last and three more from Maine.
Work next door: 10% of Mars Hill’s workers
The biggest share goes to Blaine (4%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Mars Hill workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mars Hill | – | C− | D | 21 min | $65,273 |
| Blaine | 4% | — | — | 19 min | — |
| Easton | 4% | D | C− | 20 min | $53,309 |
| Westfield | 2% | — | — | 19 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Blaine and Westfield: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Mars Hill’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 Mars Hill: questions
What is the median household income in Mars Hill?
$65,273 (±$8,917) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,733 across Maine and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Mars Hill?
9.6%, against 10.7% across Maine and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Mars Hill?
21 minutes each way on average, against 25 across Maine and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Mars Hill work?
21% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Presque Isle (28%, 11 mi), Caribou (5%, 20 mi), Easton (4%, 5 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Mars Hill walkable?
Mars Hill is more walkable than 10% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 5.5 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Mars Hill without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 8% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Mars Hill, from the people who make the trip.
More of Mars Hill
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.