Lonoke County, Arkansas

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 10.6% below the national average, so the nominal median of $72,828 is worth $81,463 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 13.6 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 2,326 workers (20.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $30,766. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 3,002 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $70,691 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $19,832, a 3.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing concentrates at 7.10x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 14 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 26% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 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 2.7x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 75% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Affordable rent tiers: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $47,871 can pay without cost burden (~$1,197/mo), and 34.3% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 63.1% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Lonoke County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Lonoke County shows strong potential for fabricated metal product manufacturing attraction, with a 7.10x concentration and 970 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans fabricated metal product manufacturing, animal production and aquaculture, and crop production, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 26% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.