East Fairfield Covered Bridge · Photo: Photo by Gerald Hann; · Public domainFairfield has 0.2 jobs for every working resident, so most commute out
Home is the office for 8% of workers, next to 17% for Vermont as a whole. There are 191 jobs in Fairfield for 799 working residents. The two grades for Fairfield are B for jobs and income and C+ for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Fairfield apart on work
Why Fairfield gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Fairfield is better than 62% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Fairfield’s grade up (5.1%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 7% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income and unemployment.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Fairfield could be anywhere from C to A−.
Who works in Fairfield, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 752 residents head out to work, 47 work right here, and 144 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,400 people are in Fairfield on a workday afternoon, 30% fewer than live here.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2023, primary jobs.
13% of working residents work in St. Albans
Where Fairfield 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.
Making and building: 42% of jobs based in Fairfield
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fairfield, 2013 → 2023: 150 → 191. 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 Fairfield’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting from Fairfield: about 24 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.8 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fairfield workers work from home, vs 17% across Vermont. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 912 commuters (the 8% who work from home are left out). Across Vermont: 82% 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.
Fairfield’s commute, mile by mile
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 Fairfield, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Fairfield is more walkable than 36% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 3.4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 7.2% across Vermont, on an EPA index of 4.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 989 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service (shown, not graded). 0% of residents live within a ¾-mile walk of a bus or train stop, 0% within a quarter mile. At the weekday evening rush, about under 0.1 trips an hour stop near the typical resident, more than in 20% of the 9,825 U.S. towns with transit data.
Transit at the evening rush trips an hour stopping within ¼ mile of the typical resident, EPA 2020
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 1.4% of Fairfield households have no vehicle (Vermont 6.2%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Fairfield’s commuters take a bus or train.
Fairfield next to U.S. towns of 1,400 to 2,700: 1,592nd of 5,509 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 719 | South Hero VT | 1,726 | $127K | 3.5% | 5.9% | 7% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 761 | East Montpelier VT | 2,594 | $93K | 2.1% | 2.6% | 16% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 788 | Dummerston VT | 1,859 | $102K | 4.5% | 1.6% | 5% | A− |
| … | |||||||
| 1,590 | Fowler Township OH | 2,295 | $76K | 13.0% | 1.7% | 3% | B |
| 1,591 | Danville VT | 2,372 | $71K | 5.3% | 0.8% | 18% | B |
| 1,592 | Fairfield VT | 2,031 | $87K | 5.1% | 2.4% | 6% | B |
| 1,593 | De Leon Springs FL | 2,687 | $57K | 8.0% | 0.0% | 2% | B |
| 1,594 | Colfax IA | 2,303 | $79K | 9.1% | 4.0% | 5% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 5,509 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Fairfield, the top three, the last and three more from Vermont.
13% of Fairfield works in a town next door
The biggest share goes to St. Albans (10%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Fairfield workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fairfield | – | B | C+ | 24 min | $87,019 |
| Bakersfield | under 4% | C+ | D− | 33 min | $83,462 |
| Fletcher | under 4% | B | C− | 32 min | $105,833 |
| Sheldon | under 4% | B+ | B | 25 min | $78,533 |
| Swanton | under 4% | C+ | B | 23 min | $81,371 |
| St. Albans | 10% | — | — | 27 min | — |
| Fairfax | under 4% | A− | B− | 31 min | $128,963 |
| Enosburgh | 3% | C | B+ | 32 min | $63,828 |
Same-state neighbors only. St. Albans: the same community as the city of that name, graded once. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Fairfield’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
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 Fairfield: questions
What is the median household income in Fairfield?
$87,019 (±$21,892) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $81,203 across Vermont and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fairfield?
5.1%, against 10.1% across Vermont and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fairfield?
24 minutes each way on average, against 24 across Vermont and 26 nationally. 8% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fairfield work?
6% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are St. Albans (13%, 8 mi), St. Albans (10%, 11 mi), South Burlington (7%, 28 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Fairfield walkable?
Fairfield is more walkable than 36% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 4.7 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fairfield without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 1% of households have no car. 0% of residents live within a quarter mile of a stop.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fairfield, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fairfield
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.