Big Sand Lake Club · Photo: Sa magnuson33 · CC BY-SA 3.0With 0.4 jobs for every working resident, most of Phelps works elsewhere
About one in ten stay in Phelps for work; outside it, Eagle River is the main destination (17%, 12 miles). 206 jobs are based in Phelps for 504 working residents. Phelps grades C for jobs and income and B− for walkability.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Phelps apart on work
Why Phelps gets the Jobs & income grade it does
On income, poverty and job access, Phelps is better than 31% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Phelps’ grade up (7.2%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 2% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (0.8%) is left out: Phelps’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, Phelps could be anywhere from D to B−.
How far it is to work from Phelps
About 38% 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.
A workday in Phelps: who goes, who stays, who comes
On a workday 453 residents head out to work, 51 work right here, and 155 people come in from elsewhere.
About 970 people are in Phelps on a workday afternoon, 23% 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.
The places Phelps commutes to
Where Phelps clocks in
17% 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.
The kinds of work in Phelps
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Phelps, 2013 → 2023: 239 → 206. 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 Phelps’s own residents hold wherever they work.
About 20 minutes to work from Phelps
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Phelps workers work from home, vs 13% across Wisconsin. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 509 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.
Few in Phelps walk, bike or ride to work
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Phelps is more walkable than 51% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 3.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.8% across Wisconsin, on an EPA index of 6.3.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 544 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). 3.3% of Phelps households have no vehicle (Wisconsin 6.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Phelps’ commuters take a bus or train.
For jobs and income, Phelps is 2,663rd of 4,866 U.S. towns of 900 to 1,700
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 22 | Nashotah WI | 1,298 | $148K | 1.1% | 0.6% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 42 | Maple Bluff WI | 1,305 | $199K | 3.0% | 1.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 46 | Wind Point WI | 1,620 | $143K | 0.4% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,661 | Cochecton NY | 1,435 | $72K | 8.2% | 6.7% | 7% | C |
| 2,662 | Bloom Township OH | 1,608 | $78K | 14.6% | 2.7% | 2% | C |
| 2,663 | Phelps WI | 1,269 | $71K | 7.2% | 0.8% | 10% | C |
| 2,664 | Toluca IL | 1,310 | $70K | 13.8% | 5.5% | 15% | C |
| 2,665 | Belmont WI | 1,042 | $62K | 9.7% | 3.6% | 11% | C |
| … | |||||||
| 4,866 | 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 Phelps, the top three, the last and three more from Wisconsin.
Work next door: 14% of Phelps’ workers
The biggest share goes to Land O'Lakes (5%).
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Phelps workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phelps | – | C | B− | 20 min | $71,250 |
| Conover | 3% | C− | B− | 24 min | $61,786 |
| Hiles | under 2% | — | — | 43 min | — |
| Washington | 4% | C | B− | 20 min | $85,379 |
| Alvin | under 2% | — | — | 21 min | — |
| Land O'Lakes | 5% | — | — | 24 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Hiles, Alvin and Land O'Lakes: fewer than 1,000 residents, not graded. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Phelps’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 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 Phelps: questions
What is the median household income in Phelps?
$71,250 (±$16,795) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,485 across Wisconsin and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Phelps?
7.2%, against 10.6% across Wisconsin and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Phelps?
20 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Wisconsin and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Phelps work?
10% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Eagle River (17%, 12 mi), Lincoln (6%, 13 mi), Land O'Lakes (5%, 17 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Phelps walkable?
Phelps is more walkable than 51% of U.S. towns (Walkability B−): an EPA walkability index of 6.3 out of 20, and 3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Phelps 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 Phelps, from the people who make the trip.
More of Phelps
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.