Ford 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 16.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Manufacturing employs 940 workers (30.6% of the top displayed sectors), at an average wage of $53,701.
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $128,390 while Retail Trade averages $30,115, a 4.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Food Manufacturing concentrates at 7.08x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 5 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.0x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 72.3% 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 (~$1,561/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Succession risk is real: 24.3% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Strong participation: 86.9% 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 37,237 annual credentials.

Ford County shows strong potential for food manufacturing attraction, with a 7.08x concentration and 462 jobs in this sub-sector, it ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.3% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across food manufacturing, machinery manufacturing, and crop production creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.

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