Household incomes in Reeds Spring are lower than in 79% of U.S. towns
Poverty touches 14.1% of residents, next to 12.6% for Missouri as a whole. The two grades for Reeds Spring are C− for jobs and income and C+ for walkability. Only 5% work in Reeds Spring itself; outside it, Branson draws the most (20%, 9 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Reeds Spring stands out on work
How Reeds Spring earns its Jobs & income grade
All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Reeds Spring’s grade.
Unemployment (0.0%) is left out: Reeds Spring’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, Reeds Spring could be anywhere from D to B.
Reeds Spring is a services town
503 jobs are based in Reeds Spring.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Reeds Spring, 2013 → 2023: 409 → 503. 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 Reeds Spring’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How a workday changes Reeds Spring
On a workday 507 residents head out to work, 27 work right here, and 476 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 (0.94 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 Reeds Spring’s working residents head each day
Where Reeds Spring clocks in
20% of workers
13% 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 21 minutes in Reeds Spring
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Reeds Spring workers work from home, vs 13% across Missouri. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 458 commuters (the 7% 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.
How far it is to work from Reeds Spring
About 20% 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.
The commute in Reeds Spring is mostly behind the wheel
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Reeds Spring is more walkable than 39% of U.S. towns. The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: 1.3% 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 495 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). 5.3% of Reeds Spring households have no vehicle (Missouri 6.6%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Reeds Spring’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Reeds Spring ranks: 3,338th of 4,866 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,700
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 35 | Loch Lloyd MO | 1,090 | $184K | 2.5% | 0.5% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 82 | LaBarque Creek MO | 1,457 | $133K | 1.1% | 1.7% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 106 | Fremont Hills MO | 1,098 | $171K | 3.9% | 1.9% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,336 | Eaton IN | 1,586 | $55K | 14.8% | 3.0% | 5% | C− |
| 3,337 | Decatur MI | 1,646 | $62K | 19.7% | 7.3% | 9% | C− |
| 3,338 | Reeds Spring MO | 1,223 | $56K | 14.1% | 0.0% | 5% | C− |
| 3,339 | Center Township IN | 1,471 | $61K | 11.7% | 0.3% | 1% | C− |
| 3,340 | Taylor Township IN | 1,084 | $55K | 8.6% | 2.9% | <1% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | 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 Reeds Spring, 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 Reeds Spring: questions
What is the median household income in Reeds Spring?
$56,364 (±$7,292) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $70,702 across Missouri and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Reeds Spring?
14.1%, against 12.6% across Missouri and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Reeds Spring?
21 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Missouri and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Reeds Spring work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Branson (20%, 9 mi), Springfield (13%, 32 mi), Branson West (4%, 4 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Reeds Spring walkable?
Reeds Spring is more walkable than 39% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 6.9 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Reeds Spring 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 Reeds Spring, from the people who make the trip.
More of Reeds Spring
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.