Photo: Chillin662 · CC BY-SA 4.0Ackerman has lower household incomes than 90% of U.S. towns
For jobs and income Ackerman is better than 6% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 27% of U.S. towns (C). Below the poverty line: 21.3% of residents; Mississippi has 18.9%. About one in seven work in Ackerman itself; outside it, Starkville draws the most (7%, 22 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Ackerman, in brief
A big share show a job far from home
36% 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 ↓
Fewer than half of Ackerman workers earn over $40,000 a year
44% of Ackerman’s working residents earn over $3,333 a month (about $40,000 a year) at their main job, wherever they work, and 17% earn $1,250 a month or less. 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 532 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Income, poverty and work: Ackerman’s grade explained
All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Ackerman’s grade.
Unemployment (23.6%) is left out: Ackerman’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, Ackerman could be anywhere from D− to C−.
How far it is to work from Ackerman
About 36% 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 kinds of work in Ackerman
718 jobs are based in Ackerman.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ackerman, 2013 → 2023: 579 → 718. 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 Ackerman’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who works in Ackerman, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 447 residents head out to work, 85 work right here, and 633 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,700 people are in Ackerman on a workday afternoon, 12% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.35 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 towns that employ Ackerman’s residents
Where Ackerman clocks in
5% 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 29 minutes from Ackerman
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 9.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Ackerman workers work from home, vs 6% across Mississippi. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 514 commuters (the 6% who work from home are left out). Across Mississippi: 87% 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.
Getting around Ackerman: mostly by car
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 1.8% across Mississippi.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 544 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). 13.0% of Ackerman households have no vehicle (Mississippi 6.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Ackerman’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ackerman next to U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,100: 5,201st of 5,794 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 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,706 | DeLisle MS | 1,906 | $72K | 7.2% | 3.9% | 4% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 2,000 | Arnold Line MS | 1,859 | $54K | 16.0% | 0.0% | <1% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 2,078 | Columbus AFB MS | 1,293 | $70K | 6.3% | 1.9% | 4% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,199 | Frazee MN | 1,310 | $47K | 22.3% | 7.1% | 6% | D |
| 5,200 | Hinckley MN | 1,992 | $51K | 19.7% | 6.8% | 25% | D |
| 5,201 | Ackerman MS | 1,536 | $48K | 21.3% | 23.6% | 16% | D |
| 5,202 | Great Falls SC | 1,960 | $30K | 31.1% | 3.6% | 4% | D |
| 5,203 | Elkhart TX | 1,265 | $53K | 28.0% | 17.0% | 10% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,794 | 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 Ackerman, the top three, the last and three more from Mississippi.
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 Ackerman: questions
What is the median household income in Ackerman?
$48,083 (±$16,790) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $56,447 across Mississippi and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ackerman?
21.3%, against 18.9% across Mississippi and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Ackerman?
29 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Mississippi and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ackerman work?
16% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Starkville (7%, 22 mi), Jackson (5%, 92 mi), Eupora (3%, 17 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Ackerman walkable?
Ackerman is more walkable than 27% of U.S. towns (Walkability C): an EPA walkability index of 7.4 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ackerman without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 13% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Ackerman, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ackerman
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.