Sangamon County, Illinois

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $8,033 (9.6%) under the Illinois median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 7.3% below the national average, so the nominal median of $75,357 is worth $81,291 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 20,990 workers (31.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $76,882. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 56,522 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $15.7B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Wholesale Trade averages $94,062 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $24,788, a 3.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional Orgs concentrates at 2.94x the national norm.
• Cluster depth: 7 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 69.4% 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: 8 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 2.3x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 71.3% 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 $41,044 can pay without cost burden (~$1,026/mo), and 41.5% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 23.1% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 61.2% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 19.7-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 5 institutions in Sangamon County award 4,151 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Sangamon County shows emerging potential for religious, grantmaking, civic, professional orgs attraction, with a 2.94x concentration and 2,352 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.1% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Health care economy accounts for 69.4% of it, with ambulatory health care services the largest single sub-sector at 42.2%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.