Holmes 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 $25,225 (33.8%) 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 $49,343 is worth $47,721 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 23.2 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: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 443 workers (23.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $40,099. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,447 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $562M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Transportation and Warehousing averages $82,249 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $18,726, a 4.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 23.20x 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 30.5% 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.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.2x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 76.4% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 19% of housing units are vacant, above the Florida rate of 14.7%, and up from 18.6% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 50.9% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 24.1%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 12.3% of the vacant stock, or 2.3% of all housing units against the 19% 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 $41,178 can pay without cost burden (~$1,029/mo), and 32.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 23.6% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 48.5% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 2.8% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Holmes County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Holmes County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 23.20x concentration and 18 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.6% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans forestry and logging, nursing and residential care facilities, and fabricated metal product manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 30.5% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.