Photo: Royalbroil · CC BY-SA 3.0Jobs and the daily commute in Fox Lake
Working residents average 23 minutes each way, about the same as across Wisconsin. The two grades for Fox Lake are B− for jobs and income and C+ for walkability. Only 8% work in Fox Lake itself; outside it, Beaver Dam draws the most (10%, 7 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What stands out about work in Fox Lake
Fox Lake makes and builds things
71% of the jobs based in Fox Lake are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Fox Lake residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 38%. The jobs ↓
Fox Lake has added jobs fast
Jobs based in Fox Lake went from 513 in 2013 to 781 in 2023, +52%. The jobs ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2023, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey; with 638 working residents, small shifts move the shares; a jump in jobs can partly be a big employer changing how it reports its locations.
Income, poverty and work: Fox Lake’s grade explained
On income, poverty and job access, Fox Lake is better than 47% of U.S. towns. All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Fox Lake’s grade.
Unemployment (0.3%) is left out: Fox Lake’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, Fox Lake could be anywhere from C to B+.
Goods, not services: 71% of the jobs in Fox Lake
781 jobs are based in Fox Lake.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fox Lake, 2013 → 2023: 513 → 781. 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 Fox Lake’s own residents hold wherever they work.
How many people are in Fox Lake by day
On a workday 589 residents head out to work, 49 work right here, and 732 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 (1.22 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 Fox Lake’s working residents head each day
Where Fox Lake clocks in
10% of workers
9% of workers
5% 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.
Fox Lake’s commute takes about 23 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 7.2 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fox Lake workers work from home, vs 13% across Wisconsin. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 860 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.
The commute from Fox Lake, by distance
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 Fox Lake, the car does most of the work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Fox Lake is more walkable than 38% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 2.6% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.8% across Wisconsin, on an EPA index of 5.5.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 976 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). 5.4% of Fox Lake households have no vehicle (Wisconsin 6.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Fox Lake’s commuters take a bus or train.
Fox Lake is 2,341st of 5,760 U.S. towns of 1,200 to 2,300 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 2 | Plandome NY | 1,482 | $250K | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1% | A+ |
| 3 | Hewlett Harbor NY | 1,332 | $250K | 1.9% | 7.2% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 22 | Nashotah WI | 1,298 | $148K | 1.1% | 0.6% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 38 | Maple Bluff WI | 1,305 | $199K | 3.0% | 1.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 43 | Wind Point WI | 1,620 | $143K | 0.4% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,339 | Homer City PA | 1,708 | $65K | 8.0% | 7.3% | 3% | B− |
| 2,340 | Theresa WI | 1,346 | $72K | 10.2% | 5.7% | 1% | B− |
| 2,341 | Fox Lake WI | 1,686 | $75K | 10.4% | 0.3% | 8% | B− |
| 2,342 | Oxford Township KS | 1,241 | $64K | 6.4% | 2.4% | 9% | B− |
| 2,343 | Pittsfield Township OH | 1,666 | $73K | 15.6% | 1.6% | 2% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,760 | Paraje NM | 1,333 | $33K | 61.7% | 0.0% | 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 Fox Lake, 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 Fox Lake: questions
What is the median household income in Fox Lake?
$75,000 (±$16,870) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,485 across Wisconsin and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Fox Lake?
10.4%, against 10.6% across Wisconsin and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Fox Lake?
23 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Wisconsin and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Fox Lake work?
8% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Beaver Dam (10%, 7 mi), Madison (9%, 42 mi), Waupun (5%, 10 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Fox Lake walkable?
Fox Lake is more walkable than 38% of U.S. towns (Walkability C+): an EPA walkability index of 5.5 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Fox Lake without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 5% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fox Lake, from the people who make the trip.
More of Fox Lake
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.