Photo: Royalbroil · CC BY-SA 3.0Household incomes in Fond du Lac trail those of 70% of U.S. towns
About two in five work in Fond du Lac; the top destination outside it is Oshkosh (6%, 18 miles). The poverty rate is 12.4%, where Wisconsin as a whole has 10.6%. Jobs and income earn Fond du Lac C+; getting around on foot earns it A−.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Fond du Lac in brief
Jobs & income in Fond du Lac: the grade in detail
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Fond du Lac is better than 45% of U.S. towns, #306 of 362 in Wisconsin. Job access by car holds Fond du Lac’s grade up; household income pulls it down ($62,260, U.S. $80,734).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Fond du Lac could be anywhere from C to B.
Who leaves Fond du Lac for work, and who comes in
On a workday 12,329 residents head out to work, 8,683 work right here, and 19,969 people come in from elsewhere.
About 52,000 people are in Fond du Lac on a workday afternoon, 17% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.36 per resident).
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
The towns that employ Fond du Lac’s residents
Where Fond du Lac clocks in
6% of workers
2% of workers
2% 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.
Factories, building and farms: 30% of the jobs in Fond du Lac
28,652 jobs are based in Fond du Lac.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fond du Lac, 2014 → 2024: 28,098 → 28,652. 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 Fond du Lac’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Commuting from Fond du Lac: about 19 minutes a trip
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.2 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fond du Lac workers work from home, vs 13% across Wisconsin. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 19,638 commuters (the 9% 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.
Close to home or a long way: work trips from Fond du Lac
About 19% 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.
Good to walk, short on transit: Fond du Lac
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Fond du Lac is more walkable than 81% of U.S. towns, #46 of 362 in Wisconsin. Both inputs place Fond du Lac near the same point nationally.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 21,630 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). 9.5% of Fond du Lac households have no vehicle (Wisconsin 6.4%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Fond du Lac’s commuters take a bus or train.
Ranked on jobs and income, Fond du Lac is 729th among 1,000 U.S. towns of 31,000 to 60,000
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | McLean VA | 49,627 | $250K | 2.9% | 2.3% | 6% | A+ |
| 2 | Southlake TX | 31,175 | $250K | 1.5% | 2.7% | 10% | A+ |
| 3 | Leawood KS | 34,093 | $186K | 3.1% | 2.0% | 9% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 14 | Brookfield WI | 41,448 | $130K | 3.2% | 2.5% | 12% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 45 | New Berlin WI | 39,953 | $101K | 4.1% | 2.2% | 10% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 56 | Oak Creek WI | 38,296 | $97K | 4.9% | 1.3% | 12% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 727 | Palm Desert CA | 53,259 | $78K | 11.0% | 6.4% | 21% | B− |
| 728 | Elkhart Township IN | 38,435 | $64K | 16.2% | 3.6% | 36% | B− |
| 729 | Fond du Lac WI | 44,541 | $62K | 12.4% | 4.4% | 41% | C+ |
| 730 | Gillette WY | 34,024 | $81K | 9.8% | 4.6% | 55% | C+ |
| 731 | Dubuque IA | 59,148 | $66K | 12.7% | 4.5% | 61% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,000 | Bullhead City AZ | 43,987 | $51K | 18.7% | 11.5% | 25% | 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 Fond du Lac, the top three, the last and three more from Wisconsin.
How Fond du Lac compares with the towns next door
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Fond du Lac workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fond du Lac | – | C+ | A− | 19 min | $62,260 |
| Taycheedah | under 2% | A | C− | 25 min | $105,690 |
| Empire | under 2% | A+ | D | 22 min | $125,185 |
| Friendship | under 2% | A | D | 22 min | $70,272 |
| North Fond du Lac | under 2% | C | C | 23 min | $62,832 |
Same-state neighbors only. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Fond du Lac’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 Fond du Lac: questions
What is the median household income in Fond du Lac?
$62,260 (±$3,249) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,485 across Wisconsin and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fond du Lac?
12.4%, against 10.6% across Wisconsin and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fond du Lac?
19 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Wisconsin and 26 nationally. 9% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fond du Lac work?
41% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Oshkosh (6%, 18 mi), Madison (2%, 69 mi), Appleton (2%, 35 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Fond du Lac walkable?
Fond du Lac is more walkable than 81% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 8.6 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fond du Lac without a car?
<1% of commuters take transit and 10% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fond du Lac, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fond du Lac
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.