Photo: Royalbroil · CC BY-SA 3.0Adams has 0.3 jobs for every working resident, so most commute out
Employers in Adams report 128 jobs, and 481 of its residents work somewhere. Jobs and income earn Adams C; getting around on foot earns it C+. Only 1% work in Adams itself; outside it, Friendship draws the most (15%, 2 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work and commuting in Adams, in brief
Inside Adams’ Jobs & income grade
On income, poverty and job access, Adams is better than 27% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Adams’ grade up (10.7%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 17% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (1.3%) is left out: Adams’s labor force is under 1,000, too few workers for a steady figure.
A rough placement. Within the Census margins of error for income and poverty, Adams could be anywhere from D to B−.
The daily flow of workers through Adams
On a workday 475 residents head out to work, 6 work right here, and 122 people come in from elsewhere.
About 1,100 people are in Adams on a workday afternoon, 25% 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 2024, primary jobs.
Where the trip to work from Adams ends
Where Adams clocks in
11% 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.
Adams makes things: 34% of its jobs are in goods
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Adams, 2014 → 2024: 118 → 128. 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 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Adams’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 26 minutes each way, longer than most of Wisconsin
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 8.2 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Adams workers work from home, vs 13% across Wisconsin. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 589 commuters (the 6% who work from home are left out). Across Wisconsin: 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.
How far Adams’ workers travel
About 29% 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 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
The commute in Adams is mostly behind the wheel
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Adams is more walkable than 45% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 3.6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.8% across Wisconsin, on an EPA index of 5.4.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 626 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). 3.2% of Adams households have no vehicle (Wisconsin 6.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Adams’ commuters take a bus or train.
Adams next to U.S. towns of 1,000 to 1,900: 3,570th of 5,877 on jobs and income
| # | 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% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 26 | Nashotah WI | 1,298 | $148K | 1.1% | 0.6% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 46 | Maple Bluff WI | 1,305 | $199K | 3.0% | 1.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 50 | Wind Point WI | 1,620 | $143K | 0.4% | 0.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,568 | Nashville IN | 1,273 | $52K | 7.2% | 1.7% | 21% | C |
| 3,569 | Tye TX | 1,264 | $48K | 10.7% | 0.7% | 3% | C |
| 3,570 | Adams WI | 1,431 | $69K | 10.7% | 1.3% | 1% | C |
| 3,571 | Pine AZ | 1,740 | $59K | 5.7% | 0.0% | 15% | C |
| 3,572 | Home Garden CA | 1,806 | $56K | 15.0% | 13.9% | 2% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 5,877 | Oglala SD | 1,071 | $21K | 68.8% | 26.5% | 1% | 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 Adams, the top three, the last and three more from Wisconsin.
Next door to Adams
The biggest share goes to Lincoln (2%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Adams workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adams | – | C | C+ | 26 min | $68,571 |
| Preston | under 2% | D− | D | 25 min | $49,219 |
| Lincoln | 2% | — | — | 32 min | — |
| Easton | under 2% | D | D− | 41 min | $54,405 |
| Quincy | under 2% | D | C+ | 27 min | $42,448 |
| Strongs Prairie | under 2% | C− | D | 27 min | $65,500 |
Same-state neighbors only. Lincoln: the same community as the town of that name, graded once. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Adams’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 2024, 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 Adams: questions
What is the median household income in Adams?
$68,571 (±$18,995) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,485 across Wisconsin and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Adams?
10.7%, against 10.6% across Wisconsin and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Adams?
26 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Wisconsin and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Adams work?
1% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Friendship (15%, 2 mi), Adams (11%, 1 mi), Westfield (4%, 15 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Adams walkable?
Adams is more walkable than 45% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 5.4 out of 20, and 4% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Adams 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 Adams, from the people who make the trip.
More of Adams
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, 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.