Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Depot · Photo: McGhiever · CC BY-SA 3.0Wheaton’s household incomes are lower than in 92% of U.S. towns
15.4% of residents live below the poverty line, where Minnesota as a whole has 9.3%. Jobs and income earn Wheaton D−; getting around on foot earns it A. Home is the office for 6% of workers, against 18% across Minnesota.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Wheaton in brief
Inside Wheaton’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Wheaton is better than 5% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Wheaton’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 5% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (3.1%) is left out: Wheaton’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, Wheaton could be anywhere from D− to D.
Getting to work from Wheaton takes about 14 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Wheaton workers work from home, vs 18% across Minnesota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 446 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.
Who works in Wheaton, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 363 residents head out to work, 210 work right here, and 291 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.
Where Wheaton’s working residents head each day
Where Wheaton clocks in
4% 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.
Jobs in Wheaton: what the 501 are
501 jobs are based in Wheaton.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Wheaton, 2013 → 2023: 647 → 501. 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 Wheaton’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How far Wheaton goes to work
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.
Good to walk, short on transit: Wheaton
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 476 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). 5.1% of Wheaton households have no vehicle (Minnesota 6.7%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Wheaton’s commuters take a bus or train.
Wheaton next to 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,881 | Searles Valley CA | 1,713 | $63K | 24.3% | 11.1% | 22% | D |
| 4,882 | Independence LA | 1,665 | $40K | 31.0% | 14.2% | 4% | D− |
| 4,883 | Wheaton MN | 1,330 | $46K | 15.4% | 3.1% | 37% | D− |
| 4,884 | Oak Hill OH | 1,420 | $45K | 18.4% | 5.9% | 4% | D− |
| 4,885 | Bogata TX | 1,118 | $40K | 19.4% | 1.5% | 5% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 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 Wheaton, 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 Wheaton: questions
What is the median household income in Wheaton?
$45,781 (±$8,335) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $89,062 across Minnesota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Wheaton?
15.4%, against 9.3% across Minnesota and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Wheaton?
14 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Minnesota and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Wheaton work?
37% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Lake Valley Township (6%, 1 mi), Morris (4%, 32 mi), Darnen Township (3%, 33 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Wheaton walkable?
Wheaton is more walkable than 92% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 9.3 out of 20, and 11% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Wheaton 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 Wheaton, from the people who make the trip.
More of Wheaton
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.