Starke County, Indiana

• 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 $7,997 (11.1%) under the Indiana median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 6.7% below the national average, so the nominal median of $63,960 is worth $68,553 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 23.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 634 workers (26.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $52,431. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 948 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $690M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Administrative and Support and Waste Management averages $66,569 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $17,292, a 3.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 5.12x 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 67.2% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: resident household spending. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.5x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 83% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 20.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Indiana rate of 8.8%, and down from 23.4% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 62.9% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 15.1% of the vacant stock, or 3.1% of all housing units against the 20.3% 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: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $33,117 can pay without cost burden (~$828/mo), and 31.8% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 24.7% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 55.1% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 0.3% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Starke County awards 11 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Starke County shows strong potential for crop production attraction, with a 5.12x concentration and 64 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.7% 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. Resident household spending accounts for 67.2% of it, with general merchandise retailers the largest single sub-sector at 30.9%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.