Photo: Flickr user Ken Lund · CC BY-SA 2.0College students make up 33% of Ephraim’s residents
The two grades for Ephraim are C for jobs and income and A− for walkability. 7% of workers work from home (Utah 18%). About one in three stay in Ephraim for work; outside it, Manti is the main destination (5%, 7 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Ephraim apart on work
Ephraim trades workers with the towns around it
Ephraim has about as many jobs (2,131) as working residents (2,343), but they are mostly different people: 1,630 residents leave for work each day while 1,418 people come in. Only 33% of the jobs in Ephraim are held by people who live here. Day and night ↓
Many jobs in Ephraim pay little
31% of the jobs based in Ephraim pay $1,250 a month or less, under $15,000 a year. Young workers hold many of them: 33% of all the jobs here go to people 29 or younger. The jobs ↓
A young workforce
33% of Ephraim’s working residents are 29 or younger, about one in three. The jobs ↓
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 ↓
Commutes from Ephraim are quick
The average trip to work takes 16 minutes, against 22 across Utah. That’s about 46 hours a year less on the road than the typical Utah worker. 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.
Ephraim’s Jobs & income grade, measure by measure
On family income, poverty and job access, Ephraim is better than 31% of U.S. towns, #103 of 119 in Utah. The poverty rate holds Ephraim’s grade up (7.2%, U.S. 11.9%); job access by car pulls it down.
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (28% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 7.2%, against 17.3% for all residents. Unemployment (10.5%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($83,125), since student households pull the household median down ($66,541).
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Ephraim could be anywhere from D to B.
The workday shuffle in and out of Ephraim
On a workday 1,630 residents head out to work, 713 work right here, and 1,418 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 (0.91 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 kinds of work in Ephraim
2,131 jobs are based in Ephraim.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ephraim, 2013 → 2023: 1,723 → 2,131. 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 Ephraim’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Where in the region Ephraim works
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 trip to work from Ephraim: about 16 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 5.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Ephraim workers work from home, vs 18% across Utah. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 2,452 commuters (the 7% who work from home are left out). Across Utah: 82% drive alone, 2% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Out of Ephraim to work: where people go
Where Ephraim clocks in
4% of workers
4% 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.
Walkable streets, thin transit: Ephraim
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Ephraim is more walkable than 84% of U.S. towns, #28 of 119 in Utah. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 14.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.0% across Utah, on an EPA index of 7.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 2,646 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). 4.0% of Ephraim households have no vehicle (Utah 4.1%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Ephraim’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Ephraim is 2,407th among 3,255 U.S. towns of 4,500 to 8,600
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Glendale MO | 6,060 | $171K | 2.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Norwood NJ | 5,817 | $178K | 2.8% | 0.9% | 6% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 63 | Fruit Heights UT | 5,952 | $141K | 3.9% | 0.2% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 82 | West Bountiful UT | 5,931 | $135K | 3.7% | 1.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 91 | South Weber UT | 8,218 | $139K | 2.2% | 1.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,405 | Cherokee IA | 5,122 | $62K | 18.5% | 2.4% | 38% | C |
| 2,406 | Clyde OH | 6,361 | $51K | 11.3% | 4.9% | 23% | C |
| 2,407 | Ephraim UT | 6,393 | $67K | 17.3% | 10.5% | 30% | C |
| 2,408 | Litchfield MN | 6,528 | $55K | 15.1% | 2.9% | 40% | C |
| 2,409 | Riverside MO | 4,581 | $52K | 17.3% | 6.5% | 6% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 3,255 | Shiprock NM | 7,610 | $36K | 34.6% | 14.9% | 14% | 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 Ephraim, the top three, the last and three more from Utah.
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. 33% 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 Ephraim: questions
What is the median household income in Ephraim?
$66,541 (±$10,459) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $95,166 across Utah and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ephraim?
17.3% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 7.2%. Utah: 8.5%.
How long is the commute from Ephraim?
16 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Utah and 26 nationally. 7% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ephraim work?
30% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Manti (5%, 7 mi), Gunnison (4%, 18 mi), Provo (4%, 61 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Ephraim walkable?
Ephraim is more walkable than 84% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.5 out of 20, and 14% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ephraim without a car?
<1% of commuters take transit and 4% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Ephraim, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ephraim
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.