Prowers County, Colorado

• 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 $41,962 (44.0%) under the Colorado median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 3.1% above the national average, so the nominal median of $53,508 is worth $51,899 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 18.2%, 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 16.4 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 726 workers (33% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $33,609. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,468 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $625M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $138,352 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $22,858, a 6.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 47.94x 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 37.3% 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.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.0x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.6% of housing units are vacant, above the Colorado rate of 8.3%, and down from 18.3% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 86.7% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 2.8%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 10.5% of the vacant stock, or 1.4% of all housing units against the 13.6% 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 $35,250 can pay without cost burden (~$881/mo), and 54% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 60.8% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 11.8-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Prowers County awards 215 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Prowers County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 47.94x concentration and 314 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans animal production and aquaculture, gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and crop production, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 37.3% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.