All roads don’t lead to Monroe County, yet plenty of commutes end there.
It’s no secret more employees come into the county every day to work than leave it. But a recently updated set of data makes it clear just how many people cross county lines to work — and how consistent commuter patterns have been over a 16-year period.
A total of 15,613 people lived outside of Monroe County and traveled into it to work in 2012, according to the data, which was released this week by the Indiana Business Research Center. That’s 18 percent of the 88,144 people working in the county.
In contrast, only 5,683 people lived in the county but traveled outside of it to work. A total of 78,214 working people lived in the county, meaning 7 percent commute out of it.
Those ratios have remained consistent over time, even as the number of people who reported working in the area have risen. In 1997, 20 percent of 75,191 people who reported working in Monroe County said they commuted to the workplace. In 2012, 18 percent of 88,144 people working in the county said the same.
The portion of workers commuting into the county eroded ever-so-slightly in recent years. Still, it never dipped below 17 percent.
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