Imperial County, California

• 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 $41,441 (41.8%) under the California median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 4.8% below the national average, so the nominal median of $57,681 is worth $60,589 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 19.5%, 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 19.6 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 33 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 11,790 workers (27.1% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $33,944. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 20,746 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $12.9B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Wholesale Trade averages $76,732 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $28,841, a 2.7x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry concentrates at 39.23x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 13 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 33.9% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 6 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.4x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 14.5% of housing units are vacant, above the California rate of 7.5%, and down from 22.3% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 26.1% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 10.8% of the vacant stock, or 1.6% of all housing units against the 14.5% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Affordable rent tiers: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $38,992 can pay without cost burden (~$975/mo), and 49.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 53% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 1.6% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Imperial County award 2,789 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Imperial County shows strong potential for support activities for agriculture and forestry attraction, with a 39.23x concentration and 5,272 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans support activities for agriculture and forestry, crop production, and mining (except oil and gas), and no single source of demand accounts for more than 33.9% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.