Madera County, California

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $22,495 (22.7%) under the California median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Elevated poverty: At 19.2%, 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 17.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 35 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting employs 12,608 workers (31.1% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $39,867. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 12,827 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $8.8B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $76,270 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $29,104, a 2.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry concentrates at 75.38x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 6 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 69.7% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: resource and agricultural commodities. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 4 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed and clear the local siting screen on energy cost, freight access and land base, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.1x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 11% of housing units are vacant, above the California rate of 7.5%, and down from 11.4% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 38.5% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 17.3% of the vacant stock, or 1.9% of all housing units against the 11% 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: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $47,645 can pay without cost burden (~$1,191/mo), and 52.2% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 56.4% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 8.2% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Madera County awards 850 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Madera County shows strong potential for support activities for agriculture and forestry attraction, with a 75.38x concentration and 9,770 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Resource and agricultural commodities accounts for 69.7% of it, with support activities for agriculture and forestry the largest single sub-sector at 59.9%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.