Photo: Onegentlemanofverona · CC BY-SA 3.0Paris has lower household incomes than 68% of U.S. towns
8.0% of residents live below the poverty line, against 12.6% across Missouri. The two grades for Paris are C for jobs and income and A for walkability. 2% of workers have no commute at all, where Missouri as a whole has 13%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Paris
A big share show a job far from home
31% 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 ↓
Few Paris workers work from home
Only 2% of workers work from home, against 13% across Missouri. Almost everyone here travels to a job. Time on the road ↓
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 507 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
How Paris earns its Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Paris is better than 27% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Paris’ grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 10% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (3.8%) is left out: Paris’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Paris could be anywhere from D to B−.
Half of Paris commutes less than 25 miles
About 31% 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.
Commuting from Paris: about 21 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Paris workers work from home, vs 13% across Missouri. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 679 commuters (the 2% 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 workday shuffle in and out of Paris
On a workday 434 residents head out to work, 73 work right here, and 365 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.
7% of working residents work in Mexico
Where Paris clocks in
7% of workers
7% 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.
What the 438 jobs in Paris are
438 jobs are based in Paris.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Paris, 2013 → 2023: 497 → 438. 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 Paris’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Paris is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Paris is more walkable than 88% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 8.7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.2% across Missouri, on an EPA index of 8.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 693 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 Paris households have no vehicle (Missouri 6.6%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Paris’ commuters take a bus or train.
How Paris ranks: 2,572nd of 4,312 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,600
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 32 | Loch Lloyd MO | 1,090 | $184K | 2.5% | 0.5% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 72 | LaBarque Creek MO | 1,457 | $133K | 1.1% | 1.7% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 94 | Fremont Hills MO | 1,098 | $171K | 3.9% | 1.9% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,570 | McGill NV | 1,050 | $57K | 5.0% | 6.9% | 3% | C |
| 2,571 | Bellevue MI | 1,348 | $64K | 16.1% | 4.9% | 4% | C |
| 2,572 | Paris MO | 1,178 | $63K | 8.0% | 3.8% | 14% | C |
| 2,573 | Princeton NC | 1,544 | $46K | 9.7% | 2.7% | 1% | C |
| 2,574 | Washburn ND | 1,254 | $73K | 10.7% | 0.5% | 12% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 4,312 | 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 Paris, 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 Paris: questions
What is the median household income in Paris?
$63,487 (±$14,481) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $70,702 across Missouri and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Paris?
8.0%, against 12.6% across Missouri and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Paris?
21 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Missouri and 26 nationally. 2% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Paris work?
14% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Mexico (7%, 23 mi), Columbia (7%, 40 mi), Moberly (5%, 23 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Paris walkable?
Paris is more walkable than 88% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 8.5 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Paris 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 Paris, from the people who make the trip.
More of Paris
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.