Lyon County, Iowa

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 12.2% below the national average, so the nominal median of $76,746 is worth $87,410 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 15.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Accommodation and Food Services employs 670 workers (24.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $36,141. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 720 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $174,369 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $18,041, a 9.7x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 58.35x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 11 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 29.6% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.0x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 80.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Broadly affordable rents: All 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes shown above sit below what a household on the median renter income of $53,063 can pay without cost burden (~$1,327/mo), and 21.9% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened; a cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Healthy participation: 68.3% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 18.9-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Lyon County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Lyon County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 58.35x concentration and 479 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans animal production and aquaculture, machinery manufacturing, and crop production, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 29.6% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.