Steuben County, Indiana

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 6.7% below the national average, so the nominal median of $74,911 is worth $80,290 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 10.1 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 44 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 5,068 workers (43.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $55,495. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,457 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Information averages $83,922 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $19,145, a 4.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing concentrates at 7.83x 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, but 67.4% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: goods manufacturing. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• 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 2.9x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 79.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 26.7% of housing units are vacant, above the Indiana rate of 8.8%, and down from 28.6% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 82.1% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 5.9% of the vacant stock, or 1.6% of all housing units against the 26.7% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $44,540 can pay without cost burden (~$1,114/mo), and 41.2% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 25.4% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 61.1% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 21.0-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Steuben County award 1,000 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Steuben County shows strong potential for fabricated metal product manufacturing attraction, with a 7.83x concentration and 1,257 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 25.4% 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. Goods manufacturing accounts for 67.4% of it, with fabricated metal product manufacturing the largest single sub-sector at 21.6%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.