Lumpkin County, Georgia

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Elevated poverty: At 14.1%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).

• Largest private-sector industry: Accommodation and Food Services employs 1,431 workers (27.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $23,320. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,446 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Wholesale Trade averages $76,797 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $23,320, a 3.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Beverage and Tobacco Product Manufacturing concentrates at 6.87x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 8 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 53.5% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: visitor economy. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.0x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 76.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.8% of housing units are vacant, above the Georgia rate of 10.3%, and down from 15% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 47.9% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 15.8% of the vacant stock, or 2.2% of all housing units against the 13.8% 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 $46,161 can pay without cost burden (~$1,154/mo), and 43.5% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 56.6% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 0.4% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Lumpkin County awards 3,274 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Lumpkin County shows strong potential for beverage and tobacco product manufacturing attraction, with a 6.87x concentration and 105 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Visitor economy accounts for 53.5% of it, with food services and drinking places the largest single sub-sector at 48.3%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.