Kendall County, Illinois

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 3.6% above the national average, so the nominal median of $111,601 is worth $107,723 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 5,535 workers (25.1% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $33,949. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 6,094 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $5.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $90,487 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,990, a 4.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing concentrates at 5.78x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 12 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 36.9% 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.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.9x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 84% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $70,152 can pay without cost burden (~$1,754/mo), and 51.2% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 72.7% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Kendall County awards 46 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Kendall County shows strong potential for plastics and rubber products manufacturing attraction, with a 5.78x concentration and 761 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans plastics and rubber products manufacturing, general merchandise retailers, and warehousing and storage, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 36.9% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.