Jacob Woodruff House · Photo: Royalbroil · CC BY-SA 3.0Ripon has lower household incomes than 82% of U.S. towns
Poverty touches 12.8% of residents, against 10.6% across Wisconsin. The two grades for Ripon are C+ for jobs and income and B for walkability. About one in three work in Ripon; the top destination outside it is Oshkosh (8%, 18 miles).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What the numbers say about work in Ripon
The four measures behind Ripon’s grade
On income, poverty, unemployment and job access, Ripon is better than 44% of U.S. towns, #307 of 362 in Wisconsin. Unemployment holds Ripon’s grade up (2.7%, U.S. 5.2%); household income pulls it down ($54,763, U.S. $80,734). It also does well on job access by car.
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for income, poverty and unemployment, Ripon could be anywhere from C to B.
Factories, building and farms: 50% of the jobs in Ripon
5,130 jobs are based in Ripon.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Ripon, 2013 → 2023: 5,017 → 5,130. 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 Ripon’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Who works in Ripon, and who works elsewhere
On a workday 2,474 residents head out to work, 1,255 work right here, and 3,875 people come in from elsewhere.
About 9,100 people are in Ripon on a workday afternoon, 18% more than live here.
About as many jobs as working residents (1.38 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.
Commuting out of Ripon: the destinations
Where Ripon clocks in
8% of workers
7% of workers
3% 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.
Time on the road from Ripon: about 19 minutes
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Ripon workers work from home, vs 13% across Wisconsin. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 3,332 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.
Near or far: the trip to work from Ripon
About 22% 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.
Most trips from Ripon start in a car
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Ripon is more walkable than 63% of U.S. towns, #131 of 362 in Wisconsin. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 5.1% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.8% across Wisconsin, on an EPA index of 6.4.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 3,780 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). 3.1% of Ripon households have no vehicle (Wisconsin 6.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Ripon’s commuters take a bus or train.
Out of 3,051 U.S. towns of 5,400 to 10,400, Ripon comes 1,915th on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Glendale MO | 6,060 | $171K | 2.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Des Peres MO | 9,102 | $224K | 2.0% | 0.5% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 17 | Fox Point WI | 6,583 | $141K | 2.5% | 0.4% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 28 | Elm Grove WI | 6,354 | $158K | 4.4% | 0.7% | 4% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 43 | Waukesha WI | 8,507 | $131K | 3.0% | 1.2% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,913 | Amsterdam NY | 5,954 | $84K | 8.4% | 7.1% | 8% | C+ |
| 1,914 | Woodstock NY | 6,215 | $92K | 9.5% | 5.3% | 17% | C+ |
| 1,915 | Ripon WI | 7,738 | $55K | 12.8% | 2.7% | 34% | C+ |
| 1,916 | Leisure World MD | 8,882 | $62K | 9.3% | 9.3% | 1% | C+ |
| 1,917 | Macon MO | 5,532 | $62K | 10.5% | 1.8% | 43% | C+ |
| … | |||||||
| 3,051 | Shiprock NM | 7,610 | $36K | 34.6% | 14.9% | 14% | 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 Ripon, 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 Ripon: questions
What is the median household income in Ripon?
$54,763 (±$9,904) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,485 across Wisconsin and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Ripon?
12.8%, against 10.6% across Wisconsin and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Ripon?
19 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Wisconsin and 26 nationally. 12% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Ripon work?
34% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Oshkosh (8%, 18 mi), Fond du Lac (7%, 20 mi), Green Lake (3%, 6 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Ripon walkable?
Ripon is more walkable than 63% of U.S. towns (Walkability B): an EPA walkability index of 6.4 out of 20, and 5% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Ripon 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 Ripon, from the people who make the trip.
More of Ripon
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.