Photo: Downspec · CC BY-SA 4.0More people are out of work in Darlington (8.0%) than in 88% of U.S. towns
Darlington grades D for jobs and income and A− for walkability. Household incomes here are lower than in 79% of U.S. towns. About one in five work in Darlington itself; outside it, Dodgeville draws the most (8%, 20 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
How Darlington earns its Jobs & income grade
All four inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Darlington’s grade.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Darlington could be anywhere from D− to C+.
How many people are in Darlington by day
On a workday 790 residents head out to work, 188 work right here, and 857 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 (1.07 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.
Where people from Darlington work
Where Darlington clocks in
8% of workers
6% of workers
6% 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.
What Darlington’s employers do
1,045 jobs are based in Darlington.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Darlington, 2013 → 2023: 1,081 → 1,045. 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 Darlington’s own residents hold wherever they work.
From Darlington, about 20 minutes to the job
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.5 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Darlington workers work from home, vs 13% across Wisconsin. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 863 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.
How many miles Darlington commutes
About 21% 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 Darlington, walking beats the bus
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Darlington is more walkable than 83% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 8.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.8% across Wisconsin, on an EPA index of 7.8.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 986 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). 1.4% of Darlington households have no vehicle (Wisconsin 6.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Darlington’s commuters take a bus or train.
Darlington is 4,840th of 5,401 U.S. towns of 1,700 to 3,400 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 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 36 | North Prairie WI | 2,193 | $153K | 2.8% | 0.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 52 | Vandenbroek WI | 1,701 | $129K | 1.6% | 5.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 86 | Sun Prairie WI | 2,291 | $127K | 2.0% | 1.8% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 4,838 | Walters OK | 2,355 | $54K | 26.8% | 3.6% | 23% | D |
| 4,839 | St. Matthews SC | 1,827 | $51K | 31.1% | 8.1% | 6% | D |
| 4,840 | Darlington WI | 2,490 | $57K | 22.1% | 8.0% | 19% | D |
| 4,841 | Corwith Township MI | 1,783 | $57K | 18.9% | 6.3% | 6% | D |
| 4,842 | Danville AR | 1,961 | $64K | 26.0% | 7.3% | 13% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 5,401 | 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 Darlington, 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 Darlington: questions
What is the median household income in Darlington?
$56,641 (±$12,757) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,485 across Wisconsin and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Darlington?
22.1%, against 10.6% across Wisconsin and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Darlington?
20 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Wisconsin and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Darlington work?
19% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Dodgeville (8%, 20 mi), Madison (6%, 45 mi), Platteville (6%, 18 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Darlington walkable?
Darlington is more walkable than 83% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.8 out of 20, and 8% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Darlington without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 1% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Darlington, from the people who make the trip.
More of Darlington
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.