Richmond County, Georgia

• 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 $21,716 (28.1%) under the Georgia median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 8.1% below the national average, so the nominal median of $55,637 is worth $60,541 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 20%, 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 11.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 35 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 20,253 workers (27.5% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $61,788. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 23,090 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $16.8B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $85,638 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $23,602, a 3.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Paper Manufacturing concentrates at 3.72x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 57.5% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: health care economy. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 7 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 3.2x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 17.7% of housing units are vacant, above the Georgia rate of 10.3%, and down from 19.4% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 53.9% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 9.4%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 30.6% of the vacant stock, or 5.4% of all housing units against the 17.7% headline vacancy rate. That is the figure to plan an incoming employer's housing against, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Affordable rent tiers: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $37,596 can pay without cost burden (~$940/mo), and 51.9% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 62.4% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 21.4-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 6 institutions in Richmond County award 4,232 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Richmond County shows meaningful potential for paper manufacturing attraction, with a 3.72x concentration and 796 jobs in this sub-sector.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Health care economy accounts for 57.5% of it, all of it in hospitals. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.