Photo: Grika at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0Households in Nicollet earn more than those in 62% of U.S. towns
Only 2% work in Nicollet itself; outside it, Mankato draws the most (25%, 13 miles). 6.6% of residents are in poverty, against 9.3% across Minnesota. Jobs and income earn Nicollet B; getting around on foot earns it B−.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Nicollet, in brief
What drives the Jobs & income grade in Nicollet
The poverty rate holds Nicollet’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 41% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income.
Unemployment (2.0%) is left out: Nicollet’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Nicollet could be anywhere from C+ to A−.
Goods jobs make up 43% of work in Nicollet
407 jobs are based in Nicollet.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Nicollet, 2013 → 2023: 366 → 407. 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 Nicollet’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A workday in Nicollet: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 468 residents head out to work, 11 work right here, and 396 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 (0.85 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.
Out of Nicollet to work: where people go
Where Nicollet clocks in
25% 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.
Commuting from Nicollet: about 19 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Nicollet workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 507 commuters (the 14% 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.
Where in the region Nicollet works
About 17% 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.
For most of Nicollet, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Nicollet is more walkable than 53% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 4.5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.7% across Minnesota, on an EPA index of 5.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 589 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). 4.6% of Nicollet households have no vehicle (Minnesota 6.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Nicollet’s commuters take a bus or train.
For jobs and income, Nicollet is 855th of 3,771 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 24 | Dellwood MN | 1,148 | $225K | 4.1% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 26 | Louisville Township MN | 1,361 | $143K | 1.1% | 0.9% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 853 | Chester MA | 1,222 | $89K | 1.8% | 1.5% | 3% | B |
| 854 | Gilman WI | 1,056 | $108K | 6.6% | 4.3% | 2% | B |
| 855 | Nicollet MN | 1,127 | $85K | 6.6% | 2.0% | 2% | B |
| 856 | Oologah OK | 1,358 | $80K | 9.4% | 7.6% | 5% | B |
| 857 | Fall Creek WI | 1,390 | $87K | 7.3% | 3.5% | 8% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 3,771 | 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 Nicollet, the top three, the last and three more from Minnesota.
How Nicollet compares with the towns next door
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Nicollet workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicollet | – | B | B− | 19 min | $84,643 |
| Nicollet Township | under 2% | — | — | 19 min | — |
| Granby Township | under 2% | — | — | 21 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Nicollet Township and Granby Township: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Nicollet’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 Nicollet: questions
What is the median household income in Nicollet?
$84,643 (±$12,651) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $89,062 across Minnesota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Nicollet?
6.6%, against 9.3% across Minnesota and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Nicollet?
19 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Minnesota and 26 nationally. 14% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Nicollet work?
2% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Mankato (25%, 13 mi), St. Peter (19%, 12 mi), North Mankato (11%, 10 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Nicollet walkable?
Nicollet is more walkable than 53% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 5.7 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Nicollet without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Nicollet, from the people who make the trip.
More of Nicollet
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.