Lawrence County, Arkansas

• 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 $15,891 (26.1%) under the Arkansas median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 13.1% below the national average, so the nominal median of $44,882 is worth $51,648 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 20.1%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 21.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 505 workers (28.1% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $34,423. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,135 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $559M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $87,127 while Retail Trade averages $34,423, a 2.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Mining (except Oil and Gas) concentrates at 13.25x 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, but 52.1% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: resident household spending. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.2x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Vacancy level: 13.5% of housing units are vacant, level with the Arkansas rate of 13.5%, and down from 19.3% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 44.1% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 11.8%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 26.1% of the vacant stock, or 3.5% of all housing units against the 13.5% 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 $31,926 can pay without cost burden (~$798/mo), and 35% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 23.4% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 53.2% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 1.3% between 2019 and 2024, from 7,113 to 7,018.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Lawrence County awards 84 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Lawrence County shows strong potential for mining (except oil and gas) attraction, with a 13.25x concentration and 56 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.4% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Resident household spending accounts for 52.1% of it, with general merchandise retailers the largest single sub-sector at 20.9%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.