Pottawattamie 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 $1,457 (1.9%) under the Iowa median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 8.1% below the national average, so the nominal median of $73,602 is worth $80,089 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 12.1 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 5,627 workers (18% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $65,733. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 5,689 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $6.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $88,740 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $29,354, a 3.0x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Food Manufacturing concentrates at 8.17x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 39.2% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.7x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $42,408 can pay without cost burden (~$1,060/mo), and 40.6% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 20% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 23.3% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 63.4% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 19.8-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Pottawattamie County award 1,429 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Pottawattamie County shows strong potential for food manufacturing attraction, with a 8.17x concentration and 3,931 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.3% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans food manufacturing, accommodation, and petroleum and coal products manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 39.2% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.