Madison 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 $375 (0.6%) 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 $63,351 is worth $70,234 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 15.1%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Young population: Median age of 35 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 4,911 workers (17.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $71,318. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 6,946 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $4.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $102,428 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,413, a 4.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Primary Metal Manufacturing concentrates at 6.85x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 7 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 52.5% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: goods manufacturing. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.7x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Affordable rent tiers: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $40,568 can pay without cost burden (~$1,014/mo), and 41.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 63.4% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: 4 institutions in Madison County award 4,053 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Madison County shows strong potential for primary metal manufacturing attraction, with a 6.85x concentration and 571 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Goods manufacturing accounts for 52.5% of it, with transportation equipment manufacturing the largest single sub-sector at 27.5%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.