Photo: Anon a mouse Lee · CC BY-SA 4.0A job hub: Wells has 1.8 jobs per working resident, and 842 people come in to work
856 jobs are based in Wells for 483 working residents. Wells grades C+ for jobs and income and A− for walkability. 6% of workers work from home, where Minnesota as a whole has 18%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Wells and work: the main findings
Wells is where the jobs are
Wells has 856 jobs, 1.8 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Wells’ biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Wells is Mankato, 32 miles away as the crow flies. 14% of working residents (68) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
A big share show a job far from home
39% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. How far ↓
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 483 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
How the Jobs & income grade adds up in Wells
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Wells is better than 37% of U.S. towns. Unemployment holds Wells’ grade up (3.4%, U.S. 5.2%); job access by car pulls it down. It also does well on the poverty rate.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Wells could be anywhere from D to B+.
A workday in Wells: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 469 residents head out to work and 14 work right here.
About 2,800 people are in Wells on a workday afternoon, 16% more 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.
How far it is to work from Wells
About 39% 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.
Who travels to work in Wells, and from where
Where Wells clocks in
14% of workers
5% 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.
Wells makes things: 33% of its jobs are in goods
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Wells, 2013 → 2023: 792 → 856. 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 Wells’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A commute of about 18 minutes in Wells
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Wells workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 1,036 commuters (the 6% 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.
In Wells, walking beats the bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Wells is more walkable than 77% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 7.0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.7% across Minnesota, on an EPA index of 7.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 1,098 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). 5.3% of Wells households have no vehicle (Minnesota 6.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Wells’ commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 4,995 U.S. towns of 1,700 to 3,200, Wells comes 2,880th on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 18 | Greenfield MN | 2,962 | $154K | 1.2% | 0.4% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 21 | Empire MN | 3,063 | $148K | 1.9% | 0.5% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 34 | May Township MN | 2,638 | $137K | 2.0% | 0.7% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,878 | Ross Township PA | 2,789 | $88K | 6.4% | 9.4% | 5% | C+ |
| 2,879 | Hawi HI | 2,070 | $84K | 10.1% | 4.0% | 3% | C+ |
| 2,880 | Wells MN | 2,395 | $60K | 8.7% | 3.4% | 3% | C+ |
| 2,881 | Bellville OH | 2,013 | $67K | 11.8% | 3.6% | 8% | C+ |
| 2,882 | Tyrone Township PA | 1,958 | $70K | 9.8% | 4.0% | 5% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,995 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Wells, 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 Wells: questions
What is the median household income in Wells?
$60,156 (±$14,607) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $89,062 across Minnesota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Wells?
8.7%, against 9.3% across Minnesota and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Wells?
18 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Minnesota and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Wells work?
3% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Mankato (14%, 32 mi), Blue Earth (7%, 20 mi), Mapleton (5%, 17 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Wells walkable?
Wells is more walkable than 77% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.3 out of 20, and 7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Wells 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 Wells, from the people who make the trip.
More of Wells
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.