Photo: TCP04 · CC BY 4.0Gerald has lower household incomes than 72% of U.S. towns
Only 5% work in Gerald; the top destination outside it is Washington (11%, 20 miles). 14.5% of residents are in poverty, next to 12.6% for Missouri as a whole. The two grades for Gerald are D for jobs and income and B− for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Gerald apart on work
How Gerald earns its Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Gerald is better than 14% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Gerald’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 14% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (6.1%) is left out: Gerald’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, Gerald could be anywhere from D− to C+.
Gerald makes things: 61% of its jobs are in goods
505 jobs are based in Gerald.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Gerald, 2013 → 2023: 513 → 505. 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 Gerald’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Gerald by day and by night
On a workday 554 residents head out to work, 30 work right here, and 475 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 (0.86 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.
The places Gerald commutes to
Where Gerald clocks in
11% of workers
8% of workers
6% 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.
A commute of about 28 minutes in Gerald
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Gerald workers work from home, vs 13% across Missouri. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 630 commuters (the 11% 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.
Gerald’s commute, mile by mile
About 29% 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.
Gerald is a driving town
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Gerald is more walkable than 48% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 4.2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.2% across Missouri, on an EPA index of 5.4.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 710 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). 6.0% of Gerald households have no vehicle (Missouri 6.6%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Gerald’s commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 5,400 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,800, Gerald comes 4,110th on jobs and income
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 38 | Loch Lloyd MO | 1,090 | $184K | 2.5% | 0.5% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 91 | LaBarque Creek MO | 1,457 | $133K | 1.1% | 1.7% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 119 | Fremont Hills MO | 1,098 | $171K | 3.9% | 1.9% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,108 | Nickerson KS | 1,051 | $49K | 12.9% | 2.1% | 3% | D |
| 4,109 | New York Mills MN | 1,481 | $57K | 15.8% | 3.1% | 17% | D |
| 4,110 | Gerald MO | 1,350 | $61K | 14.5% | 6.1% | 5% | D |
| 4,111 | Fawn Creek Township KS | 1,784 | $65K | 15.9% | 2.0% | 1% | D |
| 4,112 | Jonesport ME | 1,244 | $68K | 13.5% | 5.4% | 13% | 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 Gerald, 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 Gerald: questions
What is the median household income in Gerald?
$61,458 (±$17,731) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $70,702 across Missouri and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Gerald?
14.5%, against 12.6% across Missouri and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Gerald?
28 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Missouri and 26 nationally. 11% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Gerald work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Washington (11%, 20 mi), Union (8%, 18 mi), Owensville (6%, 10 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Gerald walkable?
Gerald is more walkable than 48% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 5.4 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Gerald without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Gerald, from the people who make the trip.
More of Gerald
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.