Photo: Magicpiano · CC BY-SA 4.0Mount Pleasant is a college town: 38% of residents are students
About one in three work in Mount Pleasant itself; outside it, Chippewa Township draws the most (8%, 6 miles). Jobs and income earn Mount Pleasant C−; getting around on foot earns it A. Measured by family income, Mount Pleasant is behind 81% of U.S. towns.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2021, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Mount Pleasant in brief
Mount Pleasant is where the jobs are
Mount Pleasant has 13,357 jobs, 2.1 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Commutes from Mount Pleasant are quick
The average trip to work takes 15 minutes, against 24 across Michigan. That’s about 69 hours a year less on the road than the typical Michigan worker. Time on the road ↓
Mount Pleasant draws workers from far and wide
The 13,357 jobs in Mount Pleasant are filled from a wide area. Mount Pleasant’s own residents hold 15% and the ten next-biggest home towns 26%; the other 59% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2021, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; 2021 is the newest year Michigan has published.
What’s behind Mount Pleasant’s Jobs & income grade
On family income, poverty and job access, Mount Pleasant is better than 21% of U.S. towns, #605 of 701 in Michigan. Job access by car holds Mount Pleasant’s grade up (ahead of 55% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (20.5%, U.S. 11.9%).
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (23% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 20.5%, against 31.4% for all residents. Unemployment (7.6%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($69,449), since student households pull the household median down ($44,706).
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 fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Mount Pleasant could be anywhere from D to C.
Who commutes out of Mount Pleasant, and who commutes in
On a workday 4,323 residents head out to work, 2,025 work right here, and 11,332 people come in from elsewhere.
About 28,000 people are in Mount Pleasant on a workday afternoon, 33% more than live here.
2.1 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2021, primary jobs.
Commuting from Mount Pleasant: about 15 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Mount Pleasant workers work from home, vs 14% across Michigan. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 9,390 commuters (the 10% 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.
Who travels to work in Mount Pleasant, and from where
Where Mount Pleasant clocks in
4% 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 work there is in Mount Pleasant: 13,357 jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Mount Pleasant, 2011 → 2021: 16,003 → 13,357. 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 Mount Pleasant’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How far it is to work from Mount Pleasant
About 29% 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.
Mount Pleasant is more walkable than most U.S. towns, with limited transit
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Mount Pleasant is more walkable than 94% of U.S. towns, #9 of 701 in Michigan. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 22.6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.8% across Michigan, on an EPA index of 9.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 10,436 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). 12.8% of Mount Pleasant households have no vehicle (Michigan 7.0%, U.S. 8.4%). 2% of Mount Pleasant’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Mount Pleasant is 1,528th among 1,705 U.S. towns of 15,000 to 28,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rogers MN | 15,606 | $159K | 1.9% | 1.2% | 10% | A+ |
| 2 | West Springfield VA | 22,532 | $163K | 1.9% | 1.7% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Wolf Trap VA | 15,858 | $250K | 3.1% | 2.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 57 | Berkley MI | 15,145 | $116K | 4.5% | 2.2% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 85 | Oakland Township MI | 20,631 | $167K | 2.7% | 3.0% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 128 | Hartland Township MI | 16,108 | $109K | 3.1% | 2.1% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,526 | Albertville AL | 23,710 | $56K | 18.2% | 6.0% | 33% | C− |
| 1,527 | Glasgow KY | 15,302 | $43K | 21.9% | 4.3% | 39% | C− |
| 1,528 | Mount Pleasant MI | 20,925 | $45K | 31.4% | 7.6% | 32% | C− |
| 1,529 | Starkville MS | 25,754 | $42K | 30.7% | 6.1% | 31% | C− |
| 1,530 | Lemon Hill CA | 15,312 | $49K | 32.0% | 8.7% | 2% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,705 | Douglas AZ | 16,038 | $42K | 27.8% | 12.3% | 29% | 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 Pleasant, 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.
- Students. 38% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- 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 Pleasant: questions
What is the median household income in Mount Pleasant?
$44,706 (±$3,398) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $72,875 across Michigan and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Mount Pleasant?
31.4% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 20.5%. Michigan: 13.2%.
How long is the commute from Mount Pleasant?
15 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Michigan and 26 nationally. 10% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Mount Pleasant work?
32% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Chippewa Township (8%, 6 mi), Union Township (6%, 2 mi), Midland (4%, 27 mi) (Census LEHD 2021).
Is Mount Pleasant walkable?
Mount Pleasant is more walkable than 94% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 9.3 out of 20, and 23% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Mount Pleasant without a car?
2% of commuters take transit and 13% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Mount Pleasant, from the people who make the trip.
More of Mount Pleasant
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.