Montgomery County, Alabama

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $4,613 (7.2%) under the Alabama median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 10.3% below the national average, so the nominal median of $59,386 is worth $66,205 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 19.9%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 14,835 workers (17.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $74,695. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 36,122 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $19.9B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $106,816 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $24,625, a 4.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Transportation Equipment Manufacturing concentrates at 5.62x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 4 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 46.7% of the employment across them, the largest being business and professional services. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 4 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.9x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Vacancy level: 13.9% of housing units are vacant, below the Alabama rate of 14.5%, and down from 14.5% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 59.4% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 3.6%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 28.4% of the vacant stock, or 3.9% of all housing units against the 13.9% headline vacancy rate. That is the figure to plan an incoming employer's housing against, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $39,479 can pay without cost burden (~$987/mo), and 49.1% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 59.1% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 4.2% between 2019 and 2024, from 110,039 to 105,459.
• Short commutes: 21.6-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: the 6 largest of 8 institutions in Montgomery County award 3,199 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Montgomery County shows strong potential for transportation equipment manufacturing attraction, with a 5.62x concentration and 7,039 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans transportation equipment manufacturing, electrical equipment, appliance manufacturing, and couriers and messengers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 46.7% of the employment across them, the largest being business and professional services. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.