Webster 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 $6,084 (8.1%) 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 $68,975 is worth $78,559 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 13.7 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 2,630 workers (20.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $82,530. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,836 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.8B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $82,530 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $19,238, a 4.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Chemical Manufacturing concentrates at 11.55x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 41.9% 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: 6 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: 70.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $36,689 can pay without cost burden (~$917/mo), and 36.8% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 22.1% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 62.3% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 20.2-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Webster County award 1,148 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Webster County shows strong potential for chemical manufacturing attraction, with a 11.55x concentration and 1,122 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.1% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans chemical manufacturing, nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing, and truck transportation, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 41.9% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.