Morgan County, Illinois

• 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 $17,084 (20.5%) under the Illinois median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 13.1 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 2,353 workers (22.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $81,541. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,348 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $81,541 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $19,884, a 4.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Printing and Related Support Activities concentrates at 10.51x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 28.6% 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: 4 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 2.0x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 72.8% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 12.9% of housing units are vacant, above the Illinois rate of 7.7%, and up from 11.3% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 65.1% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 4.5%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 18.8% of the vacant stock, or 2.4% of all housing units against the 12.9% 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 $35,630 can pay without cost burden (~$891/mo), and 31.1% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 22.6% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 56.6% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 6% between 2019 and 2024, from 16,507 to 15,515.
• Short commutes: 18.7-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Morgan County awards 323 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Morgan County shows strong potential for printing and related support activities attraction, with a 10.51x concentration and 327 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.6% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans printing and related support activities, nursing and residential care facilities, and gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 28.6% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.