Geary 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 $14,958 (20.1%) under the Kansas median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 9.8% below the national average, so the nominal median of $59,317 is worth $65,762 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 18%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 9.5 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 27 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Accommodation and Food Services employs 1,350 workers (20.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $21,917. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 4,843 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $3.7B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $79,744 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,917, a 3.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Gasoline Stations and Fuel Dealers concentrates at 2.55x the national norm.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 53.7% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: visitor economy. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.9x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Renter-majority market: 43.5% owner-occupied; flexible labor mobility but consider home-buying pipeline if attracting families.
• Elevated vacancy: 11.2% of housing units are vacant, above the Kansas rate of 9.2%, and down from 17.3% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 35.1% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 4.5%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 46.5% of the vacant stock, or 5.2% of all housing units against the 11.2% headline vacancy rate. That is the figure to plan an incoming employer's housing against, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Affordable rent tiers: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $47,093 can pay without cost burden (~$1,177/mo), and 37.4% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 71.4% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 17.5-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 Geary County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Geary County shows emerging potential for gasoline stations and fuel dealers attraction, with a 2.55x concentration and 155 jobs in this sub-sector.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Visitor economy accounts for 53.7% of it, with food services and drinking places the largest single sub-sector at 47%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.