Grundy County, Iowa

• 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 7.9 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: Construction employs 666 workers (29.7% of the top displayed sectors), at an average wage of $83,202.
• Wage stratification: Construction averages $83,202 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $11,747, a 7.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry concentrates at 20.97x 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: 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 2.3x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 84.5% 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 (~$2,180/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: 93.7% 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 21,768 annual credentials.

Grundy County shows strong potential for support activities for agriculture and forestry attraction, with a 20.97x concentration and 219 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 support activities for agriculture and forestry, gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and waste management and remediation services creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.

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