Lewis and Elizabeth Bolton House · Photo: Jim Roberts · CC BY-SA 4.0Jefferson City draws more than half of Wardsville’s working residents
Measured by household income, Wardsville is ahead of 89% of U.S. towns. The two grades for Wardsville are A for jobs and income and D for walkability. Only 3% work in Wardsville; the top destination outside it is Jefferson City (54%, 5 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Wardsville and work: the main findings
More than half of Wardsville works in Jefferson City
420 working residents, 54%, have their main job in Jefferson City, 5.2 miles away. That’s 18 times as many as work in Wardsville itself. The commute map ↓
Fewer jobs are based in Wardsville than ten years ago
Jobs counted in Wardsville fell from 1,769 in 2013 to 418 in 2023, −76%. That can be real closings or a large employer now reporting its workers at another address; the data can’t tell the two apart. The jobs ↓
Most Wardsville residents work close to home
64% of working residents have their main job less than 10 miles from home, about two in three. How far ↓
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 774 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Inside Wardsville’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Wardsville is better than 90% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate is its strongest input (2.5%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car ranks lowest, though still above most U.S. towns (ahead of 51% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income and job access by car.
Unemployment (0.7%) is left out: Wardsville’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, Wardsville could be anywhere from A− to A.
Where people from Wardsville work
Where Wardsville clocks in
54% of workers
7% of workers
1% 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.
Health, schools and offices: most of the jobs in Wardsville
418 jobs are based in Wardsville.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Wardsville, 2013 → 2023: 1,769 → 418. 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 Wardsville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How far Wardsville goes to work
About 15% 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.
A workday in Wardsville: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 749 residents head out to work, 25 work right here, and 393 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,300 people are in Wardsville on a workday afternoon, 21% fewer than live here.
0.54 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
Commuting from Wardsville: about 22 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Wardsville workers work from home, vs 13% across Missouri. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 693 commuters (the 14% 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.
For most of Wardsville, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Wardsville is more walkable than 14% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 1.2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.2% across Missouri, on an EPA index of 4.2.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 809 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). 0.0% of Wardsville households have no vehicle (Missouri 6.6%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Wardsville’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,300, Wardsville ranks 325th of 5,760 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 55 | Weatherby Lake MO | 2,139 | $153K | 3.4% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 56 | Lake Winnebago MO | 1,869 | $179K | 1.0% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 323 | Will Township IL | 1,790 | $112K | 3.1% | 3.9% | 2% | A |
| 324 | Queensland MD | 2,168 | $204K | 7.3% | 3.8% | 1% | A |
| 325 | Wardsville MO | 1,667 | $121K | 2.5% | 0.7% | 3% | A |
| 326 | Marion Township IN | 1,539 | $106K | 3.5% | 0.0% | 2% | A |
| 327 | Byron WI | 1,679 | $105K | 3.2% | 0.4% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 5,760 | 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 Wardsville, 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 Wardsville: questions
What is the median household income in Wardsville?
$121,222 (±$7,367) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $70,702 across Missouri and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Wardsville?
2.5%, against 12.6% across Missouri and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Wardsville?
22 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Missouri and 26 nationally. 14% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Wardsville work?
3% work in town.
Is Wardsville walkable?
Wardsville is more walkable than 14% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 4.2 out of 20, and 1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Wardsville without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 0% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Wardsville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Wardsville
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.