Mt. Pleasant Methodist Church · Photo: wesmims · CC BY-SA 4.0With 0.4 jobs for every working resident, most of Caledonia works elsewhere
For jobs and income Caledonia is better than 38% of U.S. towns (C+); for walkability it is more walkable than 23% of U.S. towns (C−). There are 169 jobs in Caledonia; 421 of its residents have a job. Only 3% work in Caledonia; the top destination outside it is Columbus (38%, 13 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Caledonia apart on work
Why Caledonia gets the Jobs & income grade it does
Household income holds Caledonia’s grade up ($82,806, U.S. $80,734); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 17% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (1.0%) is left out: Caledonia’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, Caledonia could be anywhere from C− to B+.
Commuting out of Caledonia: the destinations
Where Caledonia clocks in
3% 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.
Caledonia quiets down on a workday
On a workday 410 residents head out to work, 11 work right here, and 158 people come in from elsewhere.
About 870 people are in Caledonia on a workday afternoon, 23% fewer 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.
What Caledonia’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Caledonia, 2013 → 2023: 111 → 169. 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 Caledonia’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How long Caledonia spends getting to work: about 23 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.3 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Caledonia workers work from home, vs 6% across Mississippi. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 599 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.
The distance from Caledonia 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.
Getting around Caledonia: mostly by car
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 1.7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 1.8% across Mississippi, on an EPA index of 4.8.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 640 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). 2.1% of Caledonia households have no vehicle (Mississippi 6.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Caledonia’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Caledonia ranks: 1,756th of 3,771 U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,226 | Columbus AFB MS | 1,293 | $70K | 6.3% | 1.9% | 4% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,414 | Hurley MS | 1,305 | $133K | 12.6% | 4.7% | 1% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,509 | Robinhood MS | 1,298 | $70K | 14.1% | 5.1% | 1% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,754 | Bradford ME | 1,247 | $83K | 9.0% | 2.7% | 2% | C+ |
| 1,755 | Stockbridge MI | 1,291 | $50K | 8.2% | 4.5% | 11% | C+ |
| 1,756 | Caledonia MS | 1,117 | $83K | 10.2% | 1.0% | 3% | C+ |
| 1,757 | Bay City OR | 1,388 | $83K | 8.5% | 3.3% | 8% | C+ |
| 1,758 | Piedmont SD | 1,245 | $54K | 7.3% | 1.0% | 1% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,771 | 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 Caledonia, 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 Caledonia: questions
What is the median household income in Caledonia?
$82,806 (±$12,844) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $56,447 across Mississippi and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Caledonia?
10.2%, against 18.9% across Mississippi and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Caledonia?
23 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Mississippi and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Caledonia work?
3% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Columbus (38%, 13 mi), Columbus AFB (5%, 8 mi), Tupelo (3%, 47 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Caledonia walkable?
Caledonia is more walkable than 23% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 4.8 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Caledonia without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 2% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Caledonia, from the people who make the trip.
More of Caledonia
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.