Where Spencer earns its living
About one in ten work in Spencer; the top destination outside it is Marshfield (36%, 9 miles). For jobs and income Spencer is better than 63% of U.S. towns (B); for walkability it is more walkable than 71% of U.S. towns (B+). Poverty touches 2.1% of residents; Wisconsin has 10.6%.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
Work in Spencer, in a few figures
Spencer and Marshfield trade workers both ways
Marshfield is the top workplace for Spencer residents (36%) and also where the most people who work in Spencer come from (16% of its jobs). The commute map ↓
Spencer makes and builds things
62% of the jobs based in Spencer are in goods: factories, construction and farms. Across the jobs Spencer residents hold, wherever they work, it’s 34%. 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 828 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
The figures behind Spencer’s Jobs & income grade
The poverty rate holds Spencer’s grade up; job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 38% of U.S. towns).
Unemployment (0.0%) is left out: Spencer’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, Spencer could be anywhere from B− to A−.
Where the trip to work from Spencer ends
Where Spencer clocks in
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.
Making and building: 62% of jobs based in Spencer
879 jobs are based in Spencer.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Spencer, 2013 → 2023: 858 → 879. 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 Spencer’s own residents hold wherever they work.
The daily flow of workers through Spencer
On a workday 756 residents head out to work, 72 work right here, and 807 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 (1.06 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.
About 19 minutes to work from Spencer
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.2 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Spencer workers work from home, vs 13% across Wisconsin. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 710 commuters (the 16% 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.
Spencer’s commute, mile by mile
About 20% 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 of Spencer commutes by car
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 8.7% 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 849 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). 6.0% of Spencer households have no vehicle (Wisconsin 6.4%, U.S. 8.4%). 0% of Spencer’s commuters take a bus or train.
For jobs and income, Spencer is 1,392nd of 5,343 U.S. towns of 1,300 to 2,400
| # | 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+ |
| … | |||||||
| 35 | Maple Bluff WI | 1,305 | $199K | 3.0% | 1.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 40 | Wind Point WI | 1,620 | $143K | 0.4% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 41 | North Prairie WI | 2,193 | $153K | 2.8% | 0.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 1,390 | Stillwater NY | 1,751 | $90K | 8.0% | 4.0% | 2% | B |
| 1,391 | Elgin SC | 1,675 | $92K | 4.2% | 7.3% | 2% | B |
| 1,392 | Spencer WI | 1,809 | $70K | 2.1% | 0.0% | 9% | B |
| 1,393 | Fish Lake Township MN | 2,255 | $123K | 4.3% | 5.2% | 1% | B |
| 1,394 | Salisbury NH | 1,516 | $112K | 7.1% | 5.6% | 2% | B |
| … | |||||||
| 5,343 | 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 Spencer, the top three, the last and three more from Wisconsin.
Around Spencer: the bordering towns
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Spencer workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spencer | – | B | B+ | 19 min | $69,750 |
| Sherman | under 2% | — | — | 25 min | — |
Same-state neighbors only. Sherman: the same community as the town of that name, graded once. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
Darker towns draw more of Spencer’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 Spencer: questions
What is the median household income in Spencer?
$69,750 (±$15,920) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,485 across Wisconsin and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Spencer?
2.1%, against 10.6% across Wisconsin and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Spencer?
19 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Wisconsin and 26 nationally. 16% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Spencer work?
9% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Marshfield (36%, 9 mi), Spencer (3%, 3 mi), Abbotsford (2%, 13 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Spencer walkable?
Spencer is more walkable than 71% of U.S. towns (Walkability B+): an EPA walkability index of 6.4 out of 20, and 9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Spencer without a car?
0% of commuters take transit and 6% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Spencer, from the people who make the trip.
More of Spencer
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.