Photo: Brian Stansberry · CC BY 4.0Spencer has lower household incomes than 91% of U.S. towns
About one in seven work in Spencer itself; outside it, Sparta draws the most (12%, 14 miles). The poverty rate is 8.8%, where Tennessee as a whole has 13.8%. Spencer grades C− for jobs and income and D for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Spencer and work: the main findings
A big share show a job far from home
37% 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 ↓
Spencer makes and builds things
35% of the jobs based in Spencer are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Spencer residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 22%. 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 597 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Spencer’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
On income, poverty and job access, Spencer is better than 18% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Spencer’s grade up; household income pulls it down ($46,705, U.S. $80,734).
Unemployment (0.5%) is left out: Spencer’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, Spencer could be anywhere from D to C+.
The commute from Spencer, by distance
About 37% 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.
Factories, building and farms: 35% of the jobs in Spencer
534 jobs are based in Spencer.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Spencer, 2013 → 2023: 526 → 534. 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 Spencer’s own residents hold wherever they work.
In and out of Spencer on a workday
On a workday 514 residents head out to work, 83 work right here, and 451 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.
The places Spencer commutes to
Where Spencer clocks in
12% of workers
9% 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.
A commute of about 25 minutes in Spencer
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Spencer workers work from home, vs 13% across Tennessee. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 560 commuters (the 7% who work from home are left out). Across Tennessee: 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.
Most of Spencer commutes by car
The street layout scores higher than the way people actually get to work: hardly any commuters walk, bike or take transit, below the 2.0% across Tennessee.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 605 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). 2.9% of Spencer households have no vehicle (Tennessee 5.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Spencer’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Spencer is 4,483rd among 6,161 U.S. towns of 1,100 to 2,200
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 70 | Lookout Mountain TN | 2,044 | $201K | 2.3% | 0.4% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 202 | Walden TN | 1,965 | $124K | 3.1% | 4.1% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 232 | Fairmount TN | 2,110 | $137K | 3.7% | 0.0% | 1% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 4,481 | Bethel NC | 1,422 | $53K | 16.8% | 9.9% | 2% | C− |
| 4,482 | Gregory SD | 1,250 | $51K | 7.3% | 2.9% | 29% | C− |
| 4,483 | Spencer TN | 1,636 | $47K | 8.8% | 0.5% | 14% | C− |
| 4,484 | Noble Township OH | 1,976 | $46K | 8.6% | 3.4% | 3% | C− |
| 4,485 | Newton Township OH | 1,778 | $75K | 22.0% | 2.0% | 2% | C− |
| … | |||||||
| 6,161 | 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 Spencer, the top three, the last and three more from Tennessee.
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 Spencer: questions
What is the median household income in Spencer?
$46,705 (±$10,590) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $69,595 across Tennessee and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Spencer?
8.8%, against 13.8% across Tennessee and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Spencer?
25 minutes each way on average, against 26 across Tennessee and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Spencer work?
14% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Sparta (12%, 14 mi), Nashville (11%, 80 mi), Cookeville (9%, 28 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Spencer walkable?
Spencer is more walkable than 12% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 5.7 out of 20, and 0% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Spencer 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 Spencer, from the people who make the trip.
More of Spencer
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.