Photo: Bobak Ha'Eri · CC BY 3.0Jobs, pay and the trip to work in Mankato
Jobs and income earn Mankato B−; getting around on foot earns it A−. Home is the office for 8% of workers, where Minnesota as a whole has 18%. About half work in Mankato itself; outside it, North Mankato draws the most (11%, 3 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Mankato apart on work
Commutes from Mankato are quick
The average trip to work takes 14 minutes, against 23 across Minnesota. That’s about 69 hours a year less on the road than the typical Minnesota worker. Time on the road ↓
Mankato is where the jobs are
Mankato has 28,214 jobs, 1.6 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
A young workforce
33% of Mankato’s working residents are 29 or younger, about one in three. 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.
What’s behind Mankato’s Jobs & income grade
On family income, poverty and job access, Mankato is better than 48% of U.S. towns, #205 of 273 in Minnesota. Job access by car holds Mankato’s grade up (ahead of 64% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (13.7%, U.S. 11.9%). It also does well on family income.
23% of Mankato’s residents are college students, and off-campus students count in the Census poverty figures. Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (18% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 13.7%, against 20.6% for all residents. Unemployment (6.0%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($92,458), since student households pull the household median down ($66,873).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Mankato could be anywhere from C+ to B.
The daily trip from Mankato: about 14 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Mankato workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 22,664 commuters (the 8% 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.
Who works in Mankato, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 9,249 residents head out to work, 8,292 work right here, and 19,922 people come in from elsewhere.
About 57,000 people are in Mankato on a workday afternoon, 23% more than live here.
1.6 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 2023, primary jobs.
The kinds of work in Mankato
28,214 jobs are based in Mankato.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Mankato, 2013 → 2023: 29,418 → 28,214. 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 Mankato’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Where the people who work in Mankato live
Where Mankato clocks in
2% 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.
How far it is to work from Mankato
About 21% 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.
Mankato 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, Mankato is more walkable than 82% of U.S. towns, #76 of 273 in Minnesota. Both inputs place Mankato 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 24,579 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). 9.1% of Mankato households have no vehicle (Minnesota 6.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 2% of Mankato’s commuters take a bus or train.
Mankato next to U.S. towns of 33,000 to 63,000: 647th of 923 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | McLean VA | 49,627 | $250K | 2.9% | 2.3% | 6% | A+ |
| 2 | Leawood KS | 34,093 | $186K | 3.1% | 2.0% | 9% | A+ |
| 3 | Upper Arlington OH | 35,893 | $155K | 3.3% | 2.0% | 7% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 25 | Andover MN | 33,874 | $138K | 3.3% | 2.8% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 78 | Minnetonka MN | 53,969 | $120K | 5.9% | 3.0% | 12% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 84 | Edina MN | 54,356 | $129K | 4.7% | 3.9% | 13% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 645 | Plainfield NJ | 57,141 | $86K | 15.5% | 8.9% | 6% | B− |
| 646 | Harlem Township IL | 39,287 | $78K | 11.0% | 6.5% | 10% | B− |
| 647 | Mankato MN | 46,529 | $67K | 20.6% | 6.0% | 47% | B− |
| 648 | Lakewood WA | 62,755 | $75K | 13.2% | 5.7% | 15% | B− |
| 649 | Manhattan KS | 54,673 | $60K | 23.3% | 3.6% | 58% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 923 | Bullhead City AZ | 43,987 | $51K | 18.7% | 11.5% | 26% | 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 Mankato, the top three, the last and three more from Minnesota.
14% of Mankato works in a bordering town
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Mankato workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mankato | – | B− | A− | 14 min | $66,873 |
| Mankato Township | 1% | B | C | 17 min | $113,269 |
| Lime Township | under 1% | — | — | 16 min | — |
| North Mankato | 11% | A− | B+ | 15 min | $80,791 |
| Skyline | under 1% | — | — | 16 min | — |
| Belgrade Township | under 1% | A | D | 18 min | $135,000 |
| South Bend Township | 2% | B+ | C | 16 min | $87,500 |
| Kasota Township | under 1% | A | C | 21 min | $119,500 |
Same-state neighbors only. Lime Township and Skyline: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
The biggest share goes to North Mankato. Darker towns draw more of Mankato’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.
- Students. 23% 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 Mankato: questions
What is the median household income in Mankato?
$66,873 (±$3,705) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $89,062 across Minnesota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Mankato?
20.6% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 13.7%. Minnesota: 9.3%.
How long is the commute from Mankato?
14 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Minnesota and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Mankato work?
47% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are North Mankato (11%, 3 mi), St. Peter (5%, 11 mi), Rochester (2%, 75 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Mankato walkable?
Mankato is more walkable than 82% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 8.1 out of 20, and 6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Mankato without a car?
2% of commuters take transit and 9% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Mankato, from the people who make the trip.
More of Mankato
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.