Photo: Royalbroil · CC BY-SA 3.0Most of Dane commutes out: there are 0.3 jobs for every working resident
Measured by household income, Dane is ahead of 83% of U.S. towns. There are 197 jobs in Dane for 571 working residents. Dane grades A 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
The commute and the jobs: Dane in brief
The four measures behind Dane’s grade
On income, poverty and job access, Dane is better than 93% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate is its strongest input (3.9%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car ranks lowest, though still above most U.S. towns (ahead of 72% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income and job access by car.
Unemployment (0.5%) is left out: Dane’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, Dane could be anywhere from A− to A+.
34% of working residents work in Madison
Where Dane clocks in
34% of workers
8% 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.
Who works in Dane, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 569 residents head out to work, 2 work right here, and 195 people come in from elsewhere.
About 750 people are in Dane on a workday afternoon, 33% 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.
A place that makes things: 78% of Dane’s jobs are in goods
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Dane, 2013 → 2023: 206 → 197. 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 Dane’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Each way, about 22 minutes from Dane
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.9 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Dane workers work from home, vs 13% across Wisconsin. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 625 commuters (the 12% 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.
Short hops and long hauls from Dane
About 15% 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.
In Dane, most people drive to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Dane is more walkable than 14% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 1.7% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.8% across Wisconsin, on an EPA index of 2.7.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 712 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). 0.7% of Dane households have no vehicle (Wisconsin 6.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Dane’s commuters take a bus or train.
Among U.S. towns of 800 to 1,500, Dane ranks 120th of 3,771 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% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Baxter Estates NY | 1,014 | $154K | 1.0% | 3.1% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 19 | Nashotah WI | 1,298 | $148K | 1.1% | 0.6% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 33 | Maple Bluff WI | 1,305 | $199K | 3.0% | 1.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 44 | Big Bend WI | 1,498 | $135K | 3.2% | 0.6% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 118 | Machias WA | 1,276 | $152K | 5.1% | 5.7% | 1% | A |
| 119 | St. Jacob IL | 1,371 | $112K | 3.0% | 2.4% | 2% | A |
| 120 | Dane WI | 1,119 | $108K | 3.9% | 0.5% | <1% | A |
| 121 | Coburg OR | 1,373 | $98K | 1.5% | 8.9% | 5% | A |
| 122 | Williston Township ND | 1,116 | $250K | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8% | A |
| … | |||||||
| 3,771 | 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 Dane, the top three, the last and three more from Wisconsin.
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 Dane: questions
What is the median household income in Dane?
$108,375 (±$15,793) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,485 across Wisconsin and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Dane?
3.9%, against 10.6% across Wisconsin and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Dane?
22 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Wisconsin and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Dane work?
<1% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Madison (34%, 12 mi), Waunakee (8%, 5 mi), Vienna (5%, 4 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Dane walkable?
Dane is more walkable than 14% of U.S. towns (Walkability D): an EPA walkability index of 2.7 out of 20, and 2% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Dane 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 Dane, from the people who make the trip.
More of Dane
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.