Photo: Chillin662 · CC BY-SA 4.0Most of Sunflower commutes out: there are 0.3 jobs for every working resident
Working from home is the commute for 15% of workers (Mississippi 6%). Employers in Sunflower report 99 jobs for 292 working residents. Only 2% work in Sunflower itself; outside it, Indianola draws the most (25%, 9 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Sunflower and work: the main findings
The towns that employ Sunflower’s residents
Where Sunflower clocks in
25% of workers
9% of workers
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.
How many people are in Sunflower by day
On a workday 285 residents head out to work, 7 work right here, and 92 people come in from elsewhere.
About 680 people are in Sunflower on a workday afternoon, 22% 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 Sunflower’s employers do
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Sunflower, 2013 → 2023: 51 → 99. 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 Sunflower’s own residents hold wherever they work.
A commute of about 22 minutes in Sunflower
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Sunflower workers work from home, vs 6% across Mississippi. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 302 commuters (the 15% 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.
How far Sunflower goes to work
About 23% 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.
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 Sunflower: questions
What is the median household income in Sunflower?
$19,951 (±$6,976) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $56,447 across Mississippi and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Sunflower?
42.1%, against 18.9% across Mississippi and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Sunflower?
22 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Mississippi and 26 nationally. 15% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Sunflower work?
2% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Indianola (25%, 9 mi), Greenwood (9%, 20 mi), Cleveland (5%, 18 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Can you get around Sunflower without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 14% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Sunflower, from the people who make the trip.
More of Sunflower
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.