Cass County, Illinois

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 14.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Retail Trade employs 444 workers (39.8% of the top displayed sectors), at an average wage of $29,662.
• Wage stratification: Real Estate and Rental and Leasing averages $67,147 while Retail Trade averages $29,662, a 2.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 4.39x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 6 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 4 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 1.4x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 75.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Broadly affordable rents: All 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,703/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Succession risk is real: 22.3% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Strong participation: 79.8% labor force participation among working-age residents indicates an engaged, available workforce.
• Short commutes: 21.0-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 6 local institutions feed the workforce; the top three combined produce 37,237 annual credentials.

Cass County shows meaningful potential for crop production attraction, with a 4.39x concentration and 79 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.3% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across crop production, , and gasoline stations and fuel dealers creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.

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