Union 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 $10,422 (14.0%) 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 $64,146 is worth $62,037 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 19.5%, 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 24.6 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Transportation and Warehousing employs 344 workers (29.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $59,001. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,041 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $533M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $72,958 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $22,345, a 3.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 87.93x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 5 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 43.7% of the employment across them, the largest being construction and real estate cycle. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.6x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 74.7% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 10.7% of housing units are vacant, below the Florida rate of 14.7%, and down from 14.1% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 34.9% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 2.7% of the vacant stock, or 0.3% of all housing units against the 10.7% 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 $36,316 can pay without cost burden (~$908/mo), and 39.4% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 38% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 22.1% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Union County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Union County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 87.93x concentration and 47 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans forestry and logging, gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and specialty trade contractors, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 43.7% of the employment across them, the largest being construction and real estate cycle. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.