Des Moines County, Iowa

• 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 $12,131 (16.2%) under the Iowa median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 12.2% below the national average, so the nominal median of $62,928 is worth $71,672 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 11.9 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 4,068 workers (25.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $65,621. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,532 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.9B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $73,908 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $19,623, a 3.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing concentrates at 6.81x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 7 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 63.6% 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 2.2x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 74.6% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Affordable rent tiers: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $31,659 can pay without cost burden (~$791/mo), and 44.5% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 24.2% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 61.8% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 18.0-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Des Moines County awards 767 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Des Moines County shows strong potential for fabricated metal product manufacturing attraction, with a 6.81x concentration and 1,280 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.2% 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 63.6% of it, with fabricated metal product manufacturing the largest single sub-sector at 28.2%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.