Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Salem Church · Photo: Ammodramus · Public domainWakefield has lower household incomes than 78% of U.S. towns
About one in five work in Wakefield; the top destination outside it is Wayne (13%, 8 miles). 7.5% of residents are in poverty, where Nebraska as a whole has 10.6%. Wakefield grades C for jobs and income and B for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Getting to work from Wakefield, in brief
Wakefield makes and builds things
68% of the jobs based in Wakefield are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Wakefield residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 42%. The jobs ↓
Wakefield is where the jobs are
Wakefield has 1,098 jobs, 1.6 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
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 675 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Inside Wakefield’s Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Wakefield is better than 26% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Wakefield’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 15% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (3.9%) is left out: Wakefield’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Wakefield could be anywhere from D to B−.
In Wakefield, 68% of jobs are in factories, building or farming
1,098 jobs are based in Wakefield.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Wakefield, 2013 → 2023: 1,000 → 1,098. 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 Wakefield’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Wakefield by day and by night
On a workday 520 residents head out to work, 155 work right here, and 943 people come in from elsewhere.
About 2,000 people are in Wakefield on a workday afternoon, 28% 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.
The towns that send workers to Wakefield
Where Wakefield clocks in
13% of workers
7% 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.
About 19 minutes each way for Wakefield’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Wakefield workers work from home, vs 11% across Nebraska. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 540 commuters (the 7% who work from home are left out). Across Nebraska: 86% 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.
Miles to work from Wakefield
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.
For most of Wakefield, work means a drive
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Wakefield is more walkable than 62% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 7.9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.5% across Nebraska, on an EPA index of 5.6.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 578 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). 2.6% of Wakefield households have no vehicle (Nebraska 5.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Wakefield’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,100, Wakefield ranks 3,635th of 5,794 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 187 | Yutan NE | 1,451 | $103K | 0.7% | 8.8% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 261 | Buccaneer Bay NE | 1,418 | $161K | 4.9% | 0.0% | <1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 338 | Pohocco Township NE | 1,296 | $100K | 2.1% | 0.0% | 3% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 3,633 | Valley Mills TX | 1,293 | $52K | 12.0% | 1.9% | 4% | C |
| 3,634 | Warren VT | 1,965 | $87K | 15.7% | 2.4% | 31% | C |
| 3,635 | Wakefield NE | 1,527 | $57K | 7.5% | 3.9% | 23% | C |
| 3,636 | Fairview Township KS | 1,660 | $62K | 13.1% | 0.0% | 1% | C |
| 3,637 | Crown Point NY | 1,945 | $83K | 6.9% | 10.7% | 10% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 5,794 | 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 Wakefield, the top three, the last and three more from Nebraska.
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 Wakefield: questions
What is the median household income in Wakefield?
$56,964 (±$18,426) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $76,475 across Nebraska and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Wakefield?
7.5%, against 10.6% across Nebraska and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Wakefield?
19 minutes each way on average, against 19 across Nebraska and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Wakefield work?
23% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Wayne (13%, 8 mi), Norfolk (7%, 33 mi), Sioux City (5%, 29 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Wakefield walkable?
Wakefield is more walkable than 62% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 5.6 out of 20, and 8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Wakefield without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 3% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Wakefield, from the people who make the trip.
More of Wakefield
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.