Photo: Nyttend · Public domain50% of Ada’s residents are college students
Measured by family income, Ada is behind 78% of U.S. towns. Ada grades C− for jobs and income and A for walkability. About one in five work in Ada itself; outside it, Lima draws the most (9%, 15 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Ada, in a few figures
Ada trades workers with the towns around it
Ada has about as many jobs (1,593) as working residents (1,782), but they are mostly different people: 1,417 residents leave for work each day while 1,228 people come in. Only 23% of the jobs in Ada are held by people who live here. Day and night ↓
A big share show a job far from home
33% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. 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.
Why Ada gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On family income, poverty and job access, Ada is better than 16% of U.S. towns, #923 of 992 in Ohio. Job access by car holds Ada’s grade up (ahead of 41% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down (20.5%, U.S. 11.9%).
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (25% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 20.5%, against 31.5% for all residents. Unemployment (8.9%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($72,125), since student households pull the household median down ($61,649).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Ada could be anywhere from D to B+.
Who commutes out of Ada, and who commutes in
On a workday 1,417 residents head out to work, 365 work right here, and 1,228 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 (0.89 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.
Ada’s commute, mile by mile
About 33% 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.
Where people from Ada work
Where Ada clocks in
9% of workers
6% of workers
3% 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 work there is in Ada: 1,593 jobs
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ada, 2013 → 2023: 1,622 → 1,593. 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 Ada’s own residents hold wherever they work.
From Ada, about 21 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Ada workers work from home, vs 13% across Ohio. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 2,118 commuters (the 8% who work from home are left out). Across Ohio: 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.
Ada is easy on foot, hard by bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Ada is more walkable than 86% of U.S. towns, #51 of 993 in Ohio. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 17.8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.7% across Ohio, on an EPA index of 7.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 2,314 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). 1.8% of Ada households have no vehicle (Ohio 7.5%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Ada’s commuters take a bus or train.
For jobs and income, Ada is 3,182nd of 3,692 U.S. towns of 3,500 to 6,700
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riverwoods IL | 3,766 | $249K | 0.7% | 0.7% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Mission Hills KS | 3,522 | $250K | 1.2% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 33 | The Village of Indian Hill OH | 6,114 | $235K | 3.1% | 1.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 59 | South Russell OH | 3,913 | $172K | 2.1% | 2.0% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 65 | Sharon Township OH | 6,117 | $126K | 1.8% | 1.7% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,180 | McKenzie TN | 5,632 | $37K | 21.2% | 4.0% | 21% | C− |
| 3,181 | Cascade Valley WA | 4,609 | $61K | 12.6% | 8.7% | 1% | C− |
| 3,182 | Ada OH | 4,985 | $62K | 31.5% | 8.9% | 20% | C− |
| 3,183 | Paulding OH | 3,517 | $54K | 11.9% | 9.1% | 18% | C− |
| 3,184 | Mount Carmel PA | 5,579 | $53K | 16.2% | 6.4% | 7% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 3,692 | 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 Ada, the top three, the last and three more from Ohio.
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.
- Students. 50% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Ada: questions
What is the median household income in Ada?
$61,649 (±$3,380) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $71,389 across Ohio and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ada?
31.5% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 20.5%. Ohio: 13.3%.
How long is the commute from Ada?
21 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Ohio and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ada work?
20% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Lima (9%, 15 mi), Columbus (6%, 70 mi), Kenton (3%, 14 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Ada walkable?
Ada is more walkable than 86% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 7.7 out of 20, and 18% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ada without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 2% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Ada, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ada
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.