Polk County, Florida

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Elevated poverty: At 14.5%, the rate is in distressed-county territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 12.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 34,979 workers (17.5% of the top displayed sectors), at an average wage of $61,302.
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $78,512 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $25,533, a 3.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Warehousing and Storage concentrates at 5.95x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 8 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.0x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 70.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 15.1% vacancy rate; potential opportunity for redevelopment or repositioning.
• Affordable rent tiers: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,649/mo).

• Strong participation: 79.8% labor force participation among working-age residents indicates an engaged, available workforce.
• Talent pipeline: 6 local institutions feed the workforce; the top three combined produce 56,676 annual credentials.

Polk County shows strong potential for warehousing and storage attraction, with a 5.95x concentration and 18,936 jobs in this sub-sector, it ranks in the top decile nationally.

The interconnected base across warehousing and storage, truck transportation, and wood product manufacturing creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.

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