Alachua County, Florida

• 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 $12,619 (16.9%) under the Florida median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 3.3% below the national average, so the nominal median of $61,949 is worth $64,063 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 21.2%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 13.1 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.
• Young population: Median age of 32 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 28,565 workers (31.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $66,140. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 35,746 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $20.9B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $92,901 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $25,586, a 3.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 3.37x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 6 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 38.2% 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.
• Attraction whitespace: 6 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.7x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $38,969 can pay without cost burden (~$974/mo), and 58.1% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 34% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Low participation: 59.9% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 8.1% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 21.8-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 6 institutions in Alachua County award 21,369 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Alachua County shows meaningful potential for crop production attraction, with a 3.37x concentration and 1,425 jobs in this sub-sector.

The concentrated base spans crop production, miscellaneous manufacturing, and performing arts, spectator sports, and related, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 38.2% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.