Scott 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 10.9% below the national average, so the nominal median of $78,277 is worth $87,853 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 13,134 workers (18% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $61,570. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 8,852 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $13.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Management of Companies and Enterprises averages $116,759 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $23,759, a 4.9x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Primary Metal Manufacturing concentrates at 13.16x 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, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 42% 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.
• Attraction whitespace: 7 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 2.8x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $43,582 can pay without cost burden (~$1,090/mo), and 43.2% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 65.7% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 20.3-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: the 6 largest of 7 institutions in Scott County award 3,003 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Scott County shows strong potential for primary metal manufacturing attraction, with a 13.16x concentration and 3,014 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans primary metal manufacturing, machinery manufacturing, and warehousing and storage, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 42% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.