DeSoto 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 $20,151 (27.0%) under the Florida median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 3.4% above the national average, so the nominal median of $54,417 is worth $52,628 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 24.1%, 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 24.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 44 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Transportation and Warehousing employs 1,290 workers (28.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $52,857. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,045 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $73,761 while Information averages $33,316, a 2.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 21.35x 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 43.4% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. 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 3.2x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 72.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 19.2% of housing units are vacant, above the Florida rate of 14.7%, and down from 20.5% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 66.5% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 8.8% of the vacant stock, or 1.7% of all housing units against the 19.2% 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 $35,579 can pay without cost burden (~$889/mo), and 39.6% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 22.2% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Low participation: 49.5% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 4% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in DeSoto County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

DeSoto County shows strong potential for crop production attraction, with a 21.35x concentration and 687 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans crop production, support activities for agriculture and forestry, and heavy and civil engineering construction, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 43.4% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.