Union County, Illinois

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Elevated poverty: At 20.2%, 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 14.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 44 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Retail Trade employs 642 workers (32.9% of the top displayed sectors), at an average wage of $33,475.
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $113,619 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $20,953, a 5.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 27.01x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 5 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 6 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.4x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 77.4% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 12.5% vacancy rate; potential opportunity for redevelopment or repositioning.
• Broadly affordable rents: All 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,393/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Succession risk is real: 24.8% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Talent pipeline: 6 local institutions feed the workforce; the top three combined produce 37,237 annual credentials.

Union County shows strong potential for crop production attraction, with a 27.01x concentration and 508 jobs in this sub-sector, it ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.8% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across crop production, nursing and residential care facilities, and beverage and tobacco product manufacturing creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.

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