Photo: Jake DeGroot · CC BY-SA 3.0Appleton’s household incomes are lower than in 94% of U.S. towns
Jobs & income D−: near the bottom of U.S. towns on income, poverty and job access.
Walkability A: more walkable than 90% of U.S. towns.
Working residents average 23 minutes each way (Minnesota 23, U.S. 26). About one in four work in Appleton; the top destination outside it is Montevideo (5%, 23 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What’s behind Appleton’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Appleton is near the bottom of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Appleton’s grade.
Unemployment (6.3%) is left out: Appleton’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A firm grade. At either end of the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Appleton stays D−.
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 362 residents head out to work, 155 work right here, and 340 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 (0.96 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.
5% of working residents work in Montevideo
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Where Appleton clocks in
5% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
What the 495 jobs in Appleton are
495 jobs are based in Appleton. Here is what they are, next to the jobs Appleton’s own residents hold wherever they work.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Appleton, 2013 → 2023: 506 → 495. 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.
About 23 minutes each way, about the MN average
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Appleton workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 437 commuters (the 5% who work from home are left out). Across Minnesota: 84% drive alone, 2% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
Half of Appleton commutes less than 22 miles
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
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.
Appleton 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, Appleton is more walkable than 90% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Appleton near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 460 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). 6.5% of Appleton households have no vehicle (Minnesota 6.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Appleton’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Appleton compares with U.S. towns of 1,000 to 1,800
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Appleton, the top three, the last and three more from Minnesota.
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 9 | Medicine Lake MN | 1,342 | $184K | 2.7% | 0.0% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 32 | Dellwood MN | 1,148 | $225K | 4.1% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 34 | Louisville Township MN | 1,361 | $143K | 1.1% | 0.9% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,269 | Ivey GA | 1,009 | $40K | 36.5% | 15.0% | 1% | D− |
| 5,270 | Newberry MI | 1,397 | $46K | 29.7% | 10.8% | 25% | D− |
| 5,271 | Appleton MN | 1,361 | $44K | 28.3% | 6.3% | 30% | D− |
| 5,272 | Greenfield MO | 1,242 | $36K | 26.7% | 8.3% | 7% | D− |
| 5,273 | Roseboro NC | 1,189 | $39K | 39.2% | 2.6% | 4% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 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.
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 Appleton: questions
What is the median household income in Appleton?
$43,958 (±$9,191) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $89,062 across Minnesota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Appleton?
28.3%, against 9.3% across Minnesota and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Appleton?
23 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Minnesota and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Appleton work?
30% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Montevideo (5%, 23 mi), Morris (5%, 27 mi), Hantho Township (5%, 7 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Appleton walkable?
Appleton is more walkable than 90% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.9 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Appleton without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Appleton, from the people who make the trip.
More of Appleton
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.