Photo: Nyttend · Public domainFayette has lower household incomes than 88% of U.S. towns
Working from home is the commute for 2% of workers, next to 13% for Ohio as a whole. Poverty touches 24.5% of residents; Ohio has 13.3%. The two grades for Fayette are D for jobs and income and A for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Where Fayette stands out on work
Fayette makes and builds things
55% of the jobs based in Fayette are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Fayette residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 34%. The jobs ↓
Few Fayette workers work from home
Only 2% of workers work from home, against 13% across Ohio. Almost everyone here travels to a job. Time on the road ↓
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 617 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
How the Jobs & income grade adds up in Fayette
On income, poverty and job access, Fayette is better than 9% of U.S. towns. Job access by car holds Fayette’s grade up (ahead of 35% of U.S. towns); the poverty rate pulls it down.
Unemployment (1.9%) is left out: Fayette’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, Fayette could be anywhere from D− to C+.
55% of the jobs in Fayette make or build things
483 jobs are based in Fayette.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fayette, 2013 → 2023: 393 → 483. 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 Fayette’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Each way, about 22 minutes from Fayette
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.2 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fayette workers work from home, vs 13% across Ohio. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 492 commuters (the 2% 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.
Who works in Fayette, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 591 residents head out to work, 26 work right here, and 457 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,100 people are in Fayette on a workday afternoon, 10% fewer than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (0.78 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.
24% of working residents work in Archbold
Where Fayette clocks in
24% of workers
10% 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.
Half of Fayette commutes less than 13 miles
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.
In Fayette, walking beats the bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Fayette is more walkable than 85% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 16.9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 3.7% across Ohio, on an EPA index of 7.6.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 503 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). 12.5% of Fayette households have no vehicle (Ohio 7.5%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Fayette’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Fayette ranks: 4,088th of 4,866 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,700
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Somerset MD | 1,151 | $250K | 1.9% | 2.3% | <1% | A+ |
| 2 | Bellerose NY | 1,169 | $232K | 1.6% | 6.1% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 24 | New California OH | 1,672 | $162K | 0.0% | 1.1% | <1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 47 | Millcreek Township OH | 1,562 | $151K | 2.3% | 0.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 55 | Bratenahl OH | 1,396 | $138K | 4.4% | 0.8% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,086 | Montegut LA | 1,266 | $57K | 25.3% | 5.4% | 2% | D |
| 4,087 | White Castle LA | 1,585 | $19K | 60.4% | 23.1% | 5% | D |
| 4,088 | Fayette OH | 1,278 | $50K | 24.5% | 1.9% | 4% | D |
| 4,089 | Latta SC | 1,235 | $48K | 22.4% | 13.4% | 5% | D |
| 4,090 | De Kalb TX | 1,455 | $50K | 18.8% | 3.8% | 16% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 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 Fayette, 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.
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Fayette: questions
What is the median household income in Fayette?
$49,539 (±$14,581) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $71,389 across Ohio and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fayette?
24.5%, against 13.3% across Ohio and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fayette?
22 minutes each way on average, against 23 across Ohio and 26 nationally. 2% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fayette work?
4% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Archbold (24%, 11 mi), Wauseon (10%, 13 mi), Toledo (5%, 38 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Fayette walkable?
Fayette is more walkable than 85% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 7.6 out of 20, and 17% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fayette without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 12% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fayette, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fayette
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.