Photo: Heritage Preservation Department - MNHS · CC BY-SA 4.0Fulda has 0.6 jobs for every working resident, so most commute out
The two grades for Fulda are C+ for jobs and income and B+ for walkability. Employers in Fulda report 374 jobs; 655 of its residents have a job. Home is the office for 2% of workers, against 18% across Minnesota.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Fulda: the gist
Jobs & income in Fulda: the grade in detail
On income, poverty and job access, Fulda is better than 37% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Fulda’s grade up (7.3%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 15% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (2.5%) is left out: Fulda’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, Fulda could be anywhere from C− to B−.
Getting to work from Fulda takes about 21 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fulda workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 675 commuters (the 2% 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.
Fulda by day and by night
On a workday 597 residents head out to work, 58 work right here, and 316 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,000 people are in Fulda on a workday afternoon, 22% 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.
13% of working residents work in Slayton
Where Fulda clocks in
13% 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.
Mostly services: health care, schools and offices
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fulda, 2013 → 2023: 387 → 374. 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 Fulda’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How far it is to work from Fulda
About 25% 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.
The commute in Fulda is mostly behind the wheel
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Fulda is more walkable than 69% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 7.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.7% across Minnesota, on an EPA index of 6.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 689 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 Fulda households have no vehicle (Minnesota 6.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Fulda’s commuters take a bus or train.
Fulda places 2,606th of 5,400 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,604 | Belle Rose LA | 1,400 | $61K | 11.2% | 9.6% | 2% | C+ |
| 2,605 | McCord OK | 1,553 | $83K | 11.6% | 2.6% | 4% | C+ |
| 2,606 | Fulda MN | 1,303 | $71K | 7.3% | 2.5% | 9% | C+ |
| 2,607 | Chatham NY | 1,538 | $80K | 10.7% | 2.2% | 8% | C+ |
| 2,608 | Trumansburg NY | 1,755 | $69K | 9.3% | 5.1% | 7% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 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.
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Fulda, the top three, the last and three more from Minnesota.
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 Fulda: questions
What is the median household income in Fulda?
$71,136 (±$6,738) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $89,062 across Minnesota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fulda?
7.3%, against 9.3% across Minnesota and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fulda?
21 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Minnesota and 26 nationally. 2% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fulda work?
9% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Slayton (13%, 11 mi), Worthington (12%, 16 mi), Chandler (7%, 18 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Fulda walkable?
Fulda is more walkable than 69% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 6.5 out of 20, and 7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fulda 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 Fulda, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fulda
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.