Photo: I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: · CC BY-SA 3.0Making a living in Woodruff
Only 7% work in Woodruff itself; outside it, Minocqua draws the most (23%, 14 miles). Woodruff grades B− for jobs and income and A− for walkability. Home is the office for 5% of workers, next to 13% for Wisconsin as a whole.
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2023, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
What sets Woodruff apart on work
A lot of Woodruff works one town over
42% of working residents work in a town that borders Woodruff: Minocqua (23%), Arbor Vitae (11%) and Lac du Flambeau (8%). Next door ↓
Fewer jobs are based in Woodruff than ten years ago
Jobs counted in Woodruff fell from 1,053 in 2013 to 624 in 2023, −41%. That can be real closings or a large employer now reporting its workers at another address; the data can’t tell the two apart. The jobs ↓
A big share show a job far from home
35% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. How far ↓
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 811 working residents, small shifts move the shares.
Income, poverty and work: Woodruff’s grade explained
On income, poverty and job access, Woodruff is better than 49% of U.S. towns. The poverty rate holds Woodruff’s grade up (6.0%, U.S. 12.5%); job access by car pulls it down (ahead of 15% of U.S. towns). It also does well on household income.
Unemployment (1.2%) is left out: Woodruff’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, Woodruff could be anywhere from C− to B+.
Inside Woodruff’s 624 jobs
624 jobs are based in Woodruff.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Woodruff, 2013 → 2023: 1,053 → 624. 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 Woodruff’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Short hops and long hauls from Woodruff
About 35% 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.
Who commutes out of Woodruff, and who commutes in
On a workday 757 residents head out to work, 54 work right here, and 570 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 (0.77 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.
The towns that employ Woodruff’s residents
Where Woodruff clocks in
Lines 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.
About 19 minutes each way for Woodruff’s commuters
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.1 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Woodruff workers work from home, vs 13% across Wisconsin. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 728 commuters (the 5% 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.
Good to walk, short on transit: Woodruff
On EPA’s walkability index and the share of commuters who walk, bike or take transit, Woodruff is more walkable than 78% of U.S. towns. How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 9.9% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 4.8% across Wisconsin, on an EPA index of 7.1.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 766 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). 8.3% of Woodruff households have no vehicle (Wisconsin 6.4%, U.S. 8.4%). <1% of Woodruff’s commuters take a bus or train.
Woodruff next to U.S. towns of 1,500 to 2,800: 2,179th of 5,148 on jobs and income
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenilworth IL | 2,437 | $250K | 2.1% | 4.0% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Chevy Chase Village MD | 1,978 | $250K | 1.2% | 2.6% | 3% | A+ |
| 3 | Belle Meade TN | 2,621 | $250K | 1.4% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 34 | Wind Point WI | 1,620 | $143K | 0.4% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 35 | North Prairie WI | 2,193 | $153K | 2.8% | 0.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 50 | Vandenbroek WI | 1,701 | $129K | 1.6% | 5.0% | 1% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,177 | Unity NH | 1,528 | $88K | 6.3% | 1.0% | 2% | B− |
| 2,178 | Canadice NY | 1,619 | $68K | 4.0% | 11.8% | 4% | B− |
| 2,179 | Woodruff WI | 2,082 | $82K | 6.0% | 1.2% | 7% | B− |
| 2,180 | Helemano HI | 2,691 | $83K | 12.4% | 16.8% | 0% | B− |
| 2,181 | Hanapepe HI | 2,638 | $100K | 3.2% | 6.7% | 6% | B− |
| … | |||||||
| 5,148 | Lame Deer MT | 1,872 | $24K | 55.8% | 42.2% | 60% | 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 Woodruff, the top three, the last and three more from Wisconsin.
Bordering towns draw 42% of Woodruff’s workers
Average commute minutes, one way
Jobs & commute next door
| Town | Woodruff workers there | Jobs & income | Walkability | Commute | Household income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woodruff | – | B− | A− | 19 min | $81,827 |
| Minocqua | 23% | B− | C+ | 21 min | $69,112 |
| Arbor Vitae | 11% | B− | B+ | 17 min | $72,583 |
| Newbold | under 2% | B+ | C | 21 min | $75,847 |
| Lake Tomahawk | under 2% | C | C− | 24 min | $70,278 |
| Lac du Flambeau | 8% | D− | C+ | 18 min | $57,009 |
Same-state neighbors only. Commute: average minutes each way, Census ACS 2020–24.
The biggest share goes to Minocqua. Darker towns draw more of Woodruff’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 Woodruff: questions
What is the median household income in Woodruff?
$81,827 (±$23,864) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $77,485 across Wisconsin and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Woodruff?
6.0%, against 10.6% across Wisconsin and 12.5% nationally (Census ACS 2020–24).
How long is the commute from Woodruff?
19 minutes each way on average, against 22 across Wisconsin and 26 nationally. 5% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Woodruff work?
7% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Minocqua (23%, 14 mi), Arbor Vitae (11%, 8 mi), Lac du Flambeau (8%, 15 mi) (Census LEHD 2023).
Is Woodruff walkable?
Woodruff is more walkable than 78% of U.S. towns (Walkability A−): an EPA walkability index of 7.1 out of 20, and 10% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Woodruff without a car?
<1% of commuters take transit and 8% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Woodruff, from the people who make the trip.
More of Woodruff
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.