Wells County, Indiana

• 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 15.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Manufacturing employs 3,120 workers (43.1% of the top displayed sectors), at an average wage of $56,789.
• Wage stratification: Real Estate and Rental and Leasing averages $74,283 while Retail Trade averages $30,934, a 2.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Transportation Equipment Manufacturing concentrates at 7.49x 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: 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 2.7x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 75.6% 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 (~$1,799/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Succession risk is real: 23.6% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Strong participation: 91.8% 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 59,581 annual credentials.

Wells County shows strong potential for transportation equipment manufacturing attraction, with a 7.49x concentration and 966 jobs in this sub-sector, it ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.6% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

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

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