Minneapolis and St. Louis Depot · Photo: McGhiever · CC BY-SA 3.0Fairfax has 0.3 jobs for every working resident, so most commute out
Jobs and income earn Fairfax D; getting around on foot earns it B+. Employers in Fairfax report 189 jobs; 540 of its residents have a job. Working from home is the commute for 4% of workers (Minnesota 18%).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Fairfax at work: what stands out
Jobs & income in Fairfax: the grade in detail
On income, poverty and job access, Fairfax is better than 8% of U.S. towns. Household income holds Fairfax’s grade up ($60,172, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 11% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (1.9%) is left out: Fairfax’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, Fairfax could be anywhere from D− to C−.
Jobs in Fairfax: what the 189 are
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fairfax, 2013 → 2023: 315 → 189. 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 Fairfax’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How many people are in Fairfax by day
On a workday 498 residents head out to work, 42 work right here, and 147 people come in from elsewhere.
About 850 people are in Fairfax on a workday afternoon, 29% fewer than live here.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
8% of working residents work in New Ulm
Where Fairfax clocks in
8% of workers
7% of workers
6% 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.
About 25 minutes to work from Fairfax
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fairfax workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 443 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.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
How far Fairfax’s workers travel
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 2023.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Most of Fairfax commutes by car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Fairfax is more walkable than 68% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 6.3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.7% across Minnesota, on an EPA index of 6.6.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 464 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). 4.4% of Fairfax households have no vehicle (Minnesota 6.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Fairfax’s commuters take a bus or train.
For jobs and income, Fairfax is 3,675th of 4,312 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,600
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 7 | Medicine Lake MN | 1,342 | $184K | 2.7% | 0.0% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 26 | Dellwood MN | 1,148 | $225K | 4.1% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 28 | Louisville Township MN | 1,361 | $143K | 1.1% | 0.9% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,673 | Kensett AR | 1,425 | $31K | 28.0% | 5.3% | 2% | D |
| 3,674 | Westport IN | 1,406 | $49K | 22.7% | 10.4% | 4% | D |
| 3,675 | Fairfax MN | 1,203 | $60K | 19.6% | 1.9% | 8% | D |
| 3,676 | Machiasport ME | 1,004 | $60K | 15.9% | 1.9% | 4% | D |
| 3,677 | Rose Lake Township MI | 1,461 | $62K | 19.1% | 4.4% | 2% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 4,312 | 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 Fairfax, the top three, the last and three more from Minnesota.
Fairfax and its neighbors
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Fairfax workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fairfax | – | D | B+ | 25 min | $60,172 |
| Cairo Township | under 3% | — | — | 20 min | — |
| Camp Township | under 3% | — | — | 21 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Cairo Township and Camp Township: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Fairfax’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 Fairfax: questions
What is the median household income in Fairfax?
$60,172 (±$6,567) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $89,062 across Minnesota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fairfax?
19.6%, against 9.3% across Minnesota and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fairfax?
25 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Minnesota and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fairfax work?
8% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are New Ulm (8%, 20 mi), Franklin (7%, 8 mi), Redwood Falls (6%, 19 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Fairfax walkable?
Fairfax is more walkable than 68% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 6.6 out of 20, and 6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fairfax without a car?
0% 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 Fairfax, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fairfax
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.