Tackett Underwood Building · Photo: Ammodramus · CC0Household incomes in Gregory trail those of 86% of U.S. towns
Poverty touches 7.3% of residents, against 11.9% across South Dakota. The two grades for Gregory are C− for jobs and income and C+ for walkability. About one in four work in Gregory itself; outside it, Sioux Falls draws the most (12%, 137 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Gregory and work: the main findings
Gregory’s biggest commute is a long one
The top workplace outside Gregory is Sioux Falls, 137 miles away as the crow flies. 12% of working residents (67) make that trip; no town closer to home draws more of them. How far ↓
A big share show a job far from home
39% 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 ↓
Stores, warehouses and trucking
41% of the jobs in Gregory are in trade, transport and utilities, against 25% of the jobs its residents hold. The jobs ↓
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 558 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Gregory’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
On income, poverty and job access, Gregory is better than 18% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Gregory’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (near the bottom of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (2.9%) is left out: Gregory’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, Gregory could be anywhere from D to C.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Gregory
About 39% 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.
The kinds of work in Gregory
459 jobs are based in Gregory.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Gregory, 2013 → 2023: 502 → 459. 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 Gregory’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who works in Gregory, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 397 residents head out to work, 161 work right here, and 298 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 (0.82 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.
Out of Gregory to work: where people go
Where Gregory clocks in
Lines 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.
Each way, about 14 minutes from Gregory
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 4.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Gregory workers work from home, vs 10% across South Dakota. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 600 commuters (the 5% who work from home are left out). Across South Dakota: 85% 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.
Gregory is a driving town
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Gregory is more walkable than 38% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 2.3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.3% across South Dakota, on an EPA index of 5.8.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 633 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). 0.9% of Gregory households have no vehicle (South Dakota 5.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Gregory’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Gregory ranks: 3,470th 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 137 | Wall Lake Township SD | 1,210 | $129K | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 174 | Jefferson Township SD | 1,207 | $196K | 2.0% | 3.6% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 178 | Crooks SD | 1,415 | $99K | 0.5% | 1.4% | 2% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 3,468 | Mapleton IA | 1,135 | $55K | 8.4% | 2.1% | 19% | C− |
| 3,469 | Bethel NC | 1,422 | $53K | 16.8% | 9.9% | 2% | C− |
| 3,470 | Gregory SD | 1,250 | $51K | 7.3% | 2.9% | 29% | C− |
| 3,471 | Spencer TN | 1,636 | $47K | 8.8% | 0.5% | 14% | C− |
| 3,472 | Boyceville WI | 1,077 | $59K | 16.3% | 3.6% | 7% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 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 Gregory, the top three, the last and three more from South Dakota.
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 Gregory: questions
What is the median household income in Gregory?
$51,450 (±$7,884) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $75,081 across South Dakota and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Gregory?
7.3%, against 11.9% across South Dakota and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Gregory?
14 minutes each way on average, against 18 across South Dakota and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Gregory work?
29% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Sioux Falls (12%, 137 mi), Burke (7%, 7 mi), Winner (4%, 24 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Gregory walkable?
Gregory is more walkable than 38% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 5.8 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Gregory without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 1% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Gregory, from the people who make the trip.
More of Gregory
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.