Photo: Kevin Magee 1 · CC BY-SA 4.0Households in Mendenhall earn less than those in 96% of U.S. towns
31.7% of residents are in poverty, next to 18.9% for Mississippi as a whole. Jobs and income earn Mendenhall D; getting around on foot earns it A−. About one in ten work in Mendenhall; the top destination outside it is Jackson (12%, 32 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Mendenhall in brief
Mendenhall is where the jobs are
Mendenhall has 1,373 jobs, 1.6 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Mendenhall’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Mendenhall is Jackson, 32 miles away as the crow flies. 12% of working residents (107) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. 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 871 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Where Mendenhall’s Jobs & income grade comes from
On income, poverty and job access, Mendenhall is better than 8% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Mendenhall’s grade up (ahead of 43% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (7.2%) is left out: Mendenhall’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A firm grade. At either end of the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Mendenhall stays D.
Who works in Mendenhall, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 784 residents head out to work, 87 work right here, and 1,286 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,600 people are in Mendenhall on a workday afternoon, 24% more than live here.
1.6 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than 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.
Short hops and long hauls from Mendenhall
About 19% 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.
Who travels to work in Mendenhall, and from where
Where Mendenhall clocks in
12% of workers
8% 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 Mendenhall’s employers do
1,373 jobs are based in Mendenhall.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Mendenhall, 2013 → 2023: 1,309 → 1,373. 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 Mendenhall’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Getting to work from Mendenhall takes about 28 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Mendenhall workers work from home, vs 6% across Mississippi. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 749 commuters (the 1% 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.
Mendenhall is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Mendenhall is more walkable than 80% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 7.6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 1.8% across Mississippi, on an EPA index of 7.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 754 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). 5.5% of Mendenhall households have no vehicle (Mississippi 6.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Mendenhall’s commuters take a bus or train.
Mendenhall places 4,800th of 5,404 on jobs and income among U.S. towns of 1,500 to 2,900
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,749 | Guntown MS | 2,616 | $96K | 9.8% | 3.4% | 2% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 1,823 | Lynchburg MS | 2,161 | $89K | 7.1% | 10.2% | <1% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 1,835 | DeLisle MS | 1,906 | $72K | 7.2% | 3.9% | 4% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 4,798 | Hart MI | 2,065 | $51K | 21.3% | 6.1% | 21% | D |
| 4,799 | White Cloud MI | 1,548 | $45K | 15.1% | 7.0% | 9% | D |
| 4,800 | Mendenhall MS | 2,115 | $40K | 31.7% | 7.2% | 10% | D |
| 4,801 | Webster SD | 1,681 | $55K | 15.1% | 0.7% | 44% | D |
| 4,802 | Lovell WY | 2,351 | $60K | 18.6% | 3.6% | 27% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,404 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Mendenhall, 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 Mendenhall: questions
What is the median household income in Mendenhall?
$40,141 (±$9,411) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $56,447 across Mississippi and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Mendenhall?
31.7%, against 18.9% across Mississippi and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Mendenhall?
28 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Mississippi and 26 nationally. 1% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Mendenhall work?
10% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Jackson (12%, 32 mi), Magee (8%, 10 mi), Flowood (5%, 28 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Mendenhall walkable?
Mendenhall is more walkable than 80% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.5 out of 20, and 8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Mendenhall without a car?
1% 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 Mendenhall, from the people who make the trip.
More of Mendenhall
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.