95% of Fair Plain’s working residents leave town for work
Most working residents leave Fair Plain for work: only 5% work in town. The top destinations are Benton (20%), St. Joseph (11%) and Lincoln (6%). Half commute less than 8 miles.
What kind of work town is Fair Plain?
Read from the numbers below. The page puts what stands out first.
20% of working residents work in Benton
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Where Fair Plain clocks in
11% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
43% of Fair Plain works in a bordering town
The biggest share goes to Benton (20%). Darker towns draw more of Fair Plain’s workers. Tap a town to see its commute.
Average commute minutes, one way
About 20 minutes each way, quicker than most of Michigan
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6.4 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Fair Plain workers work from home, vs 14% across Michigan. Their commute is the hallway.
What the 1,584 jobs in Fair Plain are
1,584 jobs are based in Fair Plain. Here is what they are, next to the jobs Fair Plain’s own residents hold wherever they work.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Fair Plain, 2011 → 2021: 1,305 → 1,584. 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 2021.
Fair Plain quiets down on a workday
On a workday 2,752 residents head out to work, 144 work right here, and 1,440 people come in from elsewhere.
About 6,000 people are in Fair Plain on a workday afternoon, 18% fewer than live here.
0.55 jobs for every working resident, so most people commute out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2021, primary jobs.
Half of Fair Plain commutes less than 8 miles
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
About 25% 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 2021.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Every worker, home to work. The Census links each worker’s home block to their main job’s block, for jobs covered by unemployment insurance. That’s most jobs, but not the self-employed.
- Where the employer says. A job counts where the employer reports it. Some big employers report one address for many sites, which can make a few commutes look longer than they are.
- Two surveys. Flows, distances and jobs: LEHD 2021. Commute time, working from home and working out of state: the Census American Community Survey.
- Straight lines. Distances are as the crow flies between home and work. Roads, rivers and traffic make the real trip longer.
More of Fair Plain
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Fair Plain, from the people who make the trip.
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2021, 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.