Photo: Myotus · CC BY 4.0Household incomes in Madison are lower than in 72% of U.S. towns
Home is the office for 9% of workers; Minnesota has 18%. 9.9% of residents are in poverty (Minnesota 9.3%). Jobs and income earn Madison C−; getting around on foot earns it A.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Madison stands out on work
Commutes from Madison are quick
The average trip to work takes 15 minutes, against 23 across Minnesota. That’s about 61 hours a year less on the road than the typical Minnesota worker. Time on the road ↓
Many jobs in Madison pay little
26% of the jobs based in Madison pay $1,250 a month or less, under $15,000 a year. The jobs ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 680 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Why Madison gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty and job access, Madison is better than 19% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Madison’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 7% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (2.6%) is left out: Madison’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, Madison could be anywhere from D to C.
A commute of about 15 minutes in Madison
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Madison workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 566 commuters (the 9% 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.
What work there is in Madison: 594 jobs
594 jobs are based in Madison.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Madison, 2013 → 2023: 611 → 594. 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 Madison’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 488 residents head out to work, 192 work right here, and 402 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 (0.87 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.
7% of working residents work in Dawson
Where Madison clocks in
Lines 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.
Short hops and long hauls from Madison
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 2023.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
Walkable streets, thin transit: Madison
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Madison is more walkable than 89% of U.S. towns. Both inputs place Madison 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 623 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). 6.2% of Madison households have no vehicle (Minnesota 6.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Madison’s commuters take a bus or train.
Madison next to U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,000: 3,785th of 5,397 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 8 | Medicine Lake MN | 1,342 | $184K | 2.7% | 0.0% | 0% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 28 | Dellwood MN | 1,148 | $225K | 4.1% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 30 | Louisville Township MN | 1,361 | $143K | 1.1% | 0.9% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,783 | St. Michaels AZ | 1,142 | $66K | 13.9% | 12.7% | 33% | C− |
| 3,784 | Hoopers Creek NC | 1,683 | $52K | 18.4% | 6.5% | 0% | C− |
| 3,785 | Madison MN | 1,504 | $61K | 9.9% | 2.6% | 28% | C− |
| 3,786 | Surgoinsville TN | 1,920 | $54K | 17.0% | 1.5% | 2% | C− |
| 3,787 | Monteagle TN | 1,439 | $63K | 13.0% | 10.2% | 5% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,397 | 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 Madison, 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 Madison: questions
What is the median household income in Madison?
$61,172 (±$6,359) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $89,062 across Minnesota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Madison?
9.9%, against 9.3% across Minnesota and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Madison?
15 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Minnesota and 26 nationally. 9% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Madison work?
28% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dawson (7%, 9 mi), Hantho Township (5%, 9 mi), Montevideo (4%, 24 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Madison walkable?
Madison is more walkable than 89% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.7 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Madison 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 Madison, from the people who make the trip.
More of Madison
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.