Boegel and Hine Flour Mill-Wommack Mill · Photo: Darin House from Missouri, USA · CC BY 2.0For more than half of its working residents, Fair Grove is a commute to Springfield
Only 7% stay in Fair Grove for work; outside it, Springfield is the main destination (56%, 15 miles). For jobs and income Fair Grove is better than 67% of U.S. towns (B+); for walkability it is more walkable than 22% of U.S. towns (C−). The average commute takes 25 minutes each way (Missouri 24, U.S. 26).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Fair Grove at work: what stands out
Why Fair Grove gets the Jobs & income grade it does
The poverty rate holds Fair Grove’s grade up (5.0%, U.S. 12.5%); household income pulls it down ($74,514, U.S. $80,734). It also does well on job access by car.
Unemployment (4.9%) is left out: Fair Grove’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, Fair Grove could be anywhere from B− to A−.
Where the trip to work from Fair Grove ends
Where Fair Grove clocks in
56% of workers
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.
Who leaves, who stays, who comes in
On a workday 544 residents head out to work, 38 work right here, and 406 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 (0.76 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.
Fair Grove is a services town
444 jobs are based in Fair Grove.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fair Grove, 2013 → 2023: 483 → 444. 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 Fair Grove’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Time on the road from Fair Grove: about 25 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fair Grove workers work from home, vs 13% across Missouri. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 719 commuters (the 15% who work from home are left out). Across Missouri: 86% drive alone, 1% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
The distance from Fair Grove to work
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.
In Fair Grove, most people drive to work
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 0.2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 3.2% across Missouri.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 845 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). 3.1% of Fair Grove households have no vehicle (Missouri 6.6%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Fair Grove’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,200, Fair Grove ranks 1,173rd of 5,381 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 14 | Warson Woods MO | 1,990 | $207K | 1.3% | 1.8% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 54 | Weatherby Lake MO | 2,139 | $153K | 3.4% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 55 | Lake Winnebago MO | 1,869 | $179K | 1.0% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,171 | Key Vista FL | 1,418 | $75K | 5.8% | 0.0% | 1% | B+ |
| 1,172 | Poncha Springs CO | 1,393 | $97K | 0.4% | 0.0% | 3% | B+ |
| 1,173 | Fair Grove MO | 1,645 | $75K | 5.0% | 4.9% | 7% | B+ |
| 1,174 | Ocean Gate NJ | 2,005 | $69K | 6.0% | 3.9% | 3% | B+ |
| 1,175 | Cressona PA | 1,622 | $74K | 5.1% | 4.6% | 6% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5,381 | 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 Fair Grove, the top three, the last and three more from Missouri.
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 Fair Grove: questions
What is the median household income in Fair Grove?
$74,514 (±$8,784) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $70,702 across Missouri and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fair Grove?
5.0%, against 12.6% across Missouri and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fair Grove?
25 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Missouri and 26 nationally. 15% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fair Grove work?
7% work in town.
Is Fair Grove walkable?
Fair Grove is more walkable than 22% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 6.4 out of 20, and <1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fair Grove without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 3% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fair Grove, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fair Grove
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.