St. Mary's-By-The-Sea · Photo: Suekoehler · CC BY-SA 4.0Mount Desert’s household incomes are higher than in 71% of U.S. towns
The poverty rate is 7.4%; Maine has 10.7%. Mount Desert grades B− for jobs and income and A− for walkability. About one in five work in Mount Desert; the top destination outside it is Bar Harbor (32%, 6 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What stands out about work in Mount Desert
A lot of Mount Desert works one town over
41% of working residents work in a town that borders Mount Desert: Bar Harbor (32%), Southwest Harbor (7%) and Tremont (2%). Next door ↓
Most Mount Desert residents work close to home
62% of working residents have their main job less than 10 miles from home. How far ↓
Commutes from Mount Desert are quick
The average trip to work takes 18 minutes, against 25 across Maine. That’s about 54 hours a year less on the road than the typical Maine worker. Time on the road ↓
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 677 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Mount Desert
On income, poverty and job access, Mount Desert is better than 46% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Mount Desert’s grade up ($92,813, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 6% of U.S. towns). It also does well on the poverty rate.
Unemployment (1.3%) is left out: Mount Desert’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, Mount Desert could be anywhere from C to B+.
How far it is to work from Mount Desert
About 20% 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.
Getting to work from Mount Desert takes about 18 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Mount Desert workers work from home, vs 16% across Maine. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 695 commuters (the 19% 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.
A workday in Mount Desert: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 543 residents head out to work, 134 work right here, and 609 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 (1.10 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.
The places Mount Desert commutes to
Where Mount Desert clocks in
32% of workers
7% 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.
68% of the jobs in Mount Desert pay over $3,333 a month
743 jobs are based in Mount Desert.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Mount Desert, 2013 → 2023: 672 → 743. 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 Mount Desert’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Walkable streets, thin transit: Mount Desert
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Mount Desert is more walkable than 83% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 8.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.0% across Maine, on an EPA index of 7.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 859 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). 6.6% of Mount Desert households have no vehicle (Maine 6.8%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Mount Desert’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 1,500 to 3,000, Mount Desert ranks 2,572nd of 5,641 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 300 | Dayton ME | 2,182 | $114K | 3.7% | 0.2% | 5% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 622 | Ogunquit ME | 1,606 | $114K | 3.2% | 0.0% | 22% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 678 | Pownal ME | 1,645 | $104K | 5.5% | 0.7% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 2,570 | Marengo IA | 2,425 | $58K | 13.2% | 1.8% | 16% | B− |
| 2,571 | Madison Township IN | 2,132 | $69K | 9.9% | 4.0% | 2% | B− |
| 2,572 | Mount Desert ME | 2,214 | $93K | 7.4% | 1.3% | 20% | B− |
| 2,573 | Providence NY | 2,107 | $93K | 11.1% | 4.6% | 4% | B− |
| 2,574 | Deerfield Township OH | 2,885 | $59K | 18.2% | 2.1% | 2% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,641 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Mount Desert, the top three, the last and three more from Maine.
The towns next door employ 41% of Mount Desert
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Mount Desert workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mount Desert | – | B− | A− | 18 min | $92,813 |
| Bar Harbor | 32% | C+ | A− | 20 min | $77,180 |
| Cranberry Isles | under 2% | — | — | 20 min | — |
| Tremont | 2% | B− | B− | 24 min | $88,803 |
| Southwest Harbor | 7% | C− | B+ | 16 min | $59,205 |
| Blue Hill | under 2% | C+ | A− | 21 min | $80,377 |
| Surry | under 2% | C+ | D | 31 min | $74,508 |
| Trenton | under 2% | D | C | 29 min | $60,455 |
Same-state neighbors only. Cranberry Isles: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
The biggest share goes to Bar Harbor. Darker towns draw more of Mount Desert’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 Mount Desert: questions
What is the median household income in Mount Desert?
$92,813 (±$9,462) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $74,733 across Maine and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Mount Desert?
7.4%, against 10.7% across Maine and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Mount Desert?
18 minutes each way on average, against 25 across Maine and 26 nationally. 19% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Mount Desert work?
20% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Bar Harbor (32%, 6 mi), Ellsworth (7%, 19 mi), Southwest Harbor (7%, 5 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Mount Desert walkable?
Mount Desert is more walkable than 83% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.7 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Mount Desert without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 7% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Mount Desert, from the people who make the trip.
More of Mount Desert
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.