Crawford County, Kansas

• 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 $21,431 (28.9%) under the Kansas median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 9.9% below the national average, so the nominal median of $52,844 is worth $58,650 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 20.6%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Young population: Median age of 34 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 2,798 workers (24.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $57,203. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 4,375 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.2B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Transportation and Warehousing averages $87,684 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $17,213, a 5.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Printing and Related Support Activities concentrates at 13.99x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 14 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 37.6% 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: 3 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 2.5x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Elevated vacancy: 12.6% of housing units are vacant, above the Kansas rate of 9.2%, and down from 15.7% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 69.7% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 9.9%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 10.6% of the vacant stock, or 1.3% of all housing units against the 12.6% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $31,603 can pay without cost burden (~$790/mo), and 46.7% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 65.1% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 17.8-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Crawford County awards 1,801 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Crawford County shows strong potential for printing and related support activities attraction, with a 13.99x concentration and 460 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans printing and related support activities, plastics and rubber products manufacturing, and wood product manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 37.6% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.