Linn 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 $15,206 (20.5%) under the Kansas median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 7.5% below the national average, so the nominal median of $59,069 is worth $63,858 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 13.0 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 46 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 211 workers (21.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $26,865. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 828 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $576M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $92,407 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $19,926, a 4.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Nonmetallic Mineral Product Manufacturing concentrates at 25.33x 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 35.1% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• 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.
• High home ownership: 81.1% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 16.7% of housing units are vacant, above the Kansas rate of 9.2%, and down from 19.9% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 35.9% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 3.5% of the vacant stock, or 0.6% of all housing units against the 16.7% 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 $48,250 can pay without cost burden (~$1,206/mo), and 27.2% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 29% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 57.5% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 0.7% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Linn County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Linn County shows strong potential for nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing attraction, with a 25.33x concentration and 103 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 29% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing, gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and crop production, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 35.1% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.