Graves County, Kentucky

• 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 $12,954 (20.3%) under the Kentucky 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 $50,772 is worth $56,288 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 19.9%, 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 17.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 2,300 workers (30% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $53,136. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,867 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.8B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $85,206 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $18,085, a 4.7x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Wood Product Manufacturing concentrates at 6.80x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 11 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 37.8% 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: 76.1% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.9% of housing units are vacant, above the Kentucky rate of 10.3%, and down from 15.2% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 87.3% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 3.8%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 7.3% of the vacant stock, or 1% of all housing units against the 13.9% 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 $32,817 can pay without cost burden (~$820/mo), and 39% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 24.2% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 56.3% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 3% between 2019 and 2024, from 16,691 to 16,194.
• Short commutes: 20.7-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 Graves County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Graves County shows strong potential for wood product manufacturing attraction, with a 6.80x concentration and 207 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.2% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans wood product manufacturing, animal production and aquaculture, and waste management and remediation services, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 37.8% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.