Poinsett 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 $14,066 (23.1%) under the Arkansas median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 14.1% below the national average, so the nominal median of $46,707 is worth $54,374 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro 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 24.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 718 workers (25.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $62,698. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,124 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $886M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Wholesale Trade averages $82,140 while Retail Trade averages $29,176, a 2.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 11.26x 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, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 35.5% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• 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.
• Elevated vacancy: 15.9% of housing units are vacant, above the Arkansas rate of 13.5%, and up from 13.4% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 74.6% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 7.9%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 14.5% of the vacant stock, or 2.3% of all housing units against the 15.9% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $25,441 can pay without cost burden (~$636/mo), and 41.2% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 15.7% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 23% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 54.7% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 7.4% between 2019 and 2024, from 10,422 to 9,651.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Poinsett County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Poinsett County shows strong potential for crop production attraction, with a 11.26x concentration and 186 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans crop production, support activities for agriculture and forestry, and gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 35.5% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.