Photo: Jerrye & Roy Klotz, MD · CC BY-SA 4.0At 10.7%, unemployment in Ripley is higher than in 95% of U.S. towns
Measured by household income, Ripley is behind 81% of U.S. towns. The two grades for Ripley are D for jobs and income and C− for walkability. About one in five stay in Ripley for work; outside it, Tupelo is the main destination (7%, 34 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Ripley and work: the main findings
Ripley trades workers with the towns around it
Ripley has about as many jobs (2,527) as working residents (2,204), but they are mostly different people: 1,792 residents leave for work each day while 2,115 people come in. Only 16% of the jobs in Ripley are held by people who live here. Day and night ↓
No single place dominates Ripley’s commute
The biggest draw, Tupelo, gets only 7% of working residents, and 52% work outside the top ten towns entirely. Ripley residents fan out across the region. The commute map ↓
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.
How Ripley earns its Jobs & income grade
Job access by car holds Ripley’s grade up (ahead of 26% of U.S. towns); unemployment pulls it down.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Ripley could be anywhere from D− to C.
In and out of Ripley on a workday
On a workday 1,792 residents head out to work, 412 work right here, and 2,115 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 (1.15 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 Ripley’s residents
Where Ripley clocks in
7% of workers
6% of workers
4% 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.
The 2,527 jobs based in Ripley
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ripley, 2013 → 2023: 2,567 → 2,527. 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 Ripley’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 24 minutes to work from Ripley
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Ripley workers work from home, vs 6% across Mississippi. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 2,567 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.
The commute from Ripley, by distance
About 21% 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 Ripley is mostly behind the wheel
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Ripley is more walkable than 17% of U.S. towns, #84 of 101 in Mississippi. 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 2,589 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). 1.4% of Ripley households have no vehicle (Mississippi 6.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Ripley’s commuters take a bus or train.
Where Ripley sits among U.S. towns of 3,800 to 7,300
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Glendale MO | 6,060 | $171K | 2.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Ho-Ho-Kus NJ | 4,313 | $250K | 0.0% | 1.7% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 968 | New Hope MS | 3,952 | $80K | 2.9% | 1.2% | 2% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 978 | Gulf Park Estates MS | 6,264 | $66K | 5.0% | 1.0% | 1% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 987 | Saltillo MS | 5,060 | $81K | 6.8% | 1.3% | 3% | B+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,349 | Watseka IL | 4,510 | $44K | 23.4% | 5.8% | 29% | D |
| 3,350 | Scottsville KY | 4,673 | $36K | 21.9% | 8.7% | 26% | D |
| 3,351 | Ripley MS | 5,377 | $55K | 20.1% | 10.7% | 19% | D |
| 3,352 | Centre AL | 3,912 | $45K | 21.1% | 7.3% | 23% | D |
| 3,353 | Childersburg AL | 4,571 | $52K | 20.6% | 8.7% | 8% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 3,541 | Lake Isabella CA | 4,059 | $27K | 40.7% | 8.6% | 18% | 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 Ripley, 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 Ripley: questions
What is the median household income in Ripley?
$55,444 (±$13,774) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $56,447 across Mississippi and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ripley?
20.1%, against 18.9% across Mississippi and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Ripley?
24 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Mississippi and 26 nationally. 1% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ripley work?
19% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Tupelo (7%, 34 mi), New Albany (6%, 18 mi), Memphis (4%, 64 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Ripley walkable?
Ripley is more walkable than 17% of U.S. towns (Walkability C−): an EPA walkability index of 6.4 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ripley without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 1% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Ripley, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ripley
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.