Photo: Magnolia677 · CC BY 4.0Few U.S. towns have household incomes as low as Sardis’
The two grades for Sardis are D− for jobs and income and B for walkability. Household incomes here are among the lowest in the country. Below the poverty line: 40.7% of residents, next to 18.9% across Mississippi.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What stands out about work in Sardis
Why Sardis gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty and job access, Sardis is better than 4% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Sardis’ grade up (ahead of 35% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (16.3%) is left out: Sardis’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, Sardis could be anywhere from D− to D.
The kinds of work in Sardis
447 jobs are based in Sardis.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Sardis, 2013 → 2023: 397 → 447. 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 Sardis’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How many people are in Sardis by day
On a workday 730 residents head out to work, 37 work right here, and 410 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,400 people are in Sardis on a workday afternoon, 19% fewer than live here.
0.58 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.
14% of working residents work in Batesville
Where Sardis clocks in
14% of workers
8% of workers
7% 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.
About 24 minutes each way, about the MS average
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Sardis workers work from home, vs 6% across Mississippi. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 669 commuters (the 5% 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Sardis
About 20% 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.
Most trips from Sardis start in a car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Sardis is more walkable than 62% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 3.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 1.8% across Mississippi, on an EPA index of 6.9.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 704 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). 10.1% of Sardis households have no vehicle (Mississippi 6.3%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Sardis’ commuters take a bus or train.
U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,300, and where Sardis sits
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,756 | Lynchburg MS | 2,161 | $89K | 7.1% | 10.2% | <1% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 1,772 | DeLisle MS | 1,906 | $72K | 7.2% | 3.9% | 4% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 1,805 | Sumrall MS | 2,299 | $70K | 4.4% | 6.9% | 5% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 5,294 | Adamsville TN | 2,081 | $51K | 28.6% | 4.8% | 9% | D− |
| 5,295 | Harpersfield NY | 1,419 | $52K | 18.5% | 5.1% | 15% | D− |
| 5,296 | Sardis MS | 1,670 | $32K | 40.7% | 16.3% | 5% | D− |
| 5,297 | Wynnewood OK | 1,957 | $40K | 22.1% | 1.6% | 21% | D− |
| 5,298 | St. George SC | 1,868 | $33K | 28.4% | 0.6% | 15% | D− |
| … | |||||||
| 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 Sardis, 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 Sardis: questions
What is the median household income in Sardis?
$32,205 (±$9,271) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $56,447 across Mississippi and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Sardis?
40.7%, against 18.9% across Mississippi and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Sardis?
24 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Mississippi and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Sardis work?
5% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Batesville (14%, 8 mi), Southaven (8%, 36 mi), Memphis (7%, 47 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Sardis walkable?
Sardis is more walkable than 62% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 6.9 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Sardis without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 10% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Sardis, from the people who make the trip.
More of Sardis
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.