Quincy, Omaha and Kansas City Railroad Office Building · Photo: Jon Roanhaus · CC BY-SA 4.0Milan draws 1,243 commuters a day, with 2.3 jobs for every working resident
4% of workers work from home; Missouri has 13%. 1,666 jobs are based in Milan for 716 working residents. Milan grades C− for jobs and income and C+ for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Jobs and commuting in Milan: the gist
Milan is where the jobs are
Milan has 1,666 jobs, 2.3 for every working resident. On a workday afternoon about 2,700 people are in town, 55% more than the 1,700 who live here. Day and night ↓
Jobs in Milan have more than doubled in ten years
Jobs based in Milan went from 788 in 2013 to 1,666 in 2023, +111%. The jobs ↓
Milan makes and builds things
64% of the jobs based in Milan are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Milan residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 52%. The jobs ↓
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 716 working residents, small shifts move the shares; a jump in jobs can partly be a big employer changing how it reports its locations.
How Milan earns its Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Milan is better than 17% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Milan’s grade up (10.7%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 12% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (5.8%) is left out: Milan’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, Milan could be anywhere from D to C.
In and out of Milan on a workday
On a workday 293 residents head out to work and 423 work right here.
About 2,700 people are in Milan on a workday afternoon, 55% 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.
Milan works in goods: 64% of its jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Milan, 2013 → 2023: 788 → 1,666. 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 Milan’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The towns that send workers to Milan
Where Milan clocks in
3% of workers
2% 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.
Each way, about 13 minutes from Milan
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Milan workers work from home, vs 13% across Missouri. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 780 commuters (the 3% 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.
Half of Milan commutes less than 1 miles
About 26% 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.
Driving is how Milan gets around
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Milan is more walkable than 44% of U.S. towns. 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 808 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). 5.4% of Milan households have no vehicle (Missouri 6.6%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Milan’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Milan is 4,542nd among 6,085 U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,400
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 15 | Warson Woods MO | 1,990 | $207K | 1.3% | 1.8% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 56 | Weatherby Lake MO | 2,139 | $153K | 3.4% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 57 | Lake Winnebago MO | 1,869 | $179K | 1.0% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,540 | Fairfax CA | 1,423 | $30K | 36.4% | 0.0% | 2% | C− |
| 4,541 | Adrian MO | 1,798 | $53K | 13.8% | 10.7% | 12% | C− |
| 4,542 | Milan MO | 1,742 | $56K | 10.7% | 5.8% | 59% | C− |
| 4,543 | Bridgeport OH | 1,523 | $54K | 16.3% | 5.8% | 3% | C− |
| 4,544 | Albany TX | 1,905 | $68K | 10.5% | 10.9% | 15% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 6,085 | 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 Milan, 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 Milan: questions
What is the median household income in Milan?
$56,063 (±$5,992) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $70,702 across Missouri and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Milan?
10.7%, against 12.6% across Missouri and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Milan?
13 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Missouri and 26 nationally. 4% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Milan work?
59% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Kirksville (3%, 29 mi), Kansas City (2%, 106 mi), Columbia (2%, 97 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Milan walkable?
Milan is more walkable than 44% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 8.7 out of 20, and <1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Milan without a car?
<1% 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 Milan, from the people who make the trip.
More of Milan
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.