Households in Decatur earn less than those in 71% of U.S. towns
Home is the office for 5% of workers (Michigan 14%). Poverty touches 19.7% of residents, against 13.2% across Michigan. Decatur grades C− for jobs and income and B+ for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2021, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Decatur’s Jobs & income grade comes from
On income, poverty and job access, Decatur is better than 20% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Decatur’s grade up (ahead of 42% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (7.3%) is left out: Decatur’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
The commuting and job counts on this page are Census LEHD 2021: Michigan reports later than other states, so its newest year is two years behind.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Decatur could be anywhere from D to B−.
A workday in Decatur: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 572 residents head out to work, 59 work right here, and 499 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 (0.88 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2021, primary jobs.
11% of working residents work in Decatur Township
Where Decatur clocks in
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.
Decatur makes things: 31% of its jobs are in goods
558 jobs are based in Decatur.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Decatur, 2011 → 2021: 492 → 558. 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 2021.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Decatur’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Decatur’s commute takes about 23 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Decatur workers work from home, vs 14% across Michigan. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 835 commuters (the 5% who work from home are left out). Across Michigan: 86% 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.
The distance from Decatur to work
About 24% 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 2021.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
For most of Decatur, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Decatur is more walkable than 66% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 4.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.8% across Michigan, on an EPA index of 7.1.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 883 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). 4.3% of Decatur households have no vehicle (Michigan 7.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Decatur’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Decatur ranks: 3,797th of 5,381 U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,200
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 94 | Caledonia MI | 1,778 | $106K | 3.7% | 0.5% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 190 | Wheatfield Township MI | 1,659 | $117K | 1.9% | 2.7% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 231 | Sylvan Lake MI | 1,685 | $106K | 5.4% | 2.9% | 3% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 3,795 | Ethete WY | 1,326 | $81K | 15.5% | 28.6% | 13% | C− |
| 3,796 | Eaton IN | 1,586 | $55K | 14.8% | 3.0% | 5% | C− |
| 3,797 | Decatur MI | 1,646 | $62K | 19.7% | 7.3% | 9% | C− |
| 3,798 | Union City MI | 1,726 | $63K | 14.5% | 7.9% | 6% | C− |
| 3,799 | Reeds Spring MO | 1,223 | $56K | 14.1% | 0.0% | 5% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,381 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 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 Decatur, the top three, the last and three more from Michigan.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2021, 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 Decatur: questions
What is the median household income in Decatur?
$61,806 (±$11,977) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,875 across Michigan and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Decatur?
19.7%, against 13.2% across Michigan and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Decatur?
23 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Michigan and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Decatur work?
9% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Decatur Township (11%, 3 mi), Portage (10%, 21 mi), Paw Paw Township (7%, 7 mi) (Census LEHD 2021).
Is Decatur walkable?
Decatur is more walkable than 66% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 7.1 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Decatur without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Decatur, from the people who make the trip.
More of Decatur
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2021, 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.