Meade County, Kentucky

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 6.9% below the national average, so the nominal median of $74,355 is worth $79,866 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 15.7 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 912 workers (25.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $130,472. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,140 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $130,472 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,508, a 6.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Specialty Trade Contractors concentrates at 4.53x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 4 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 64.6% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: construction and real estate cycle. 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 2.8x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 74.1% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 10.1% of housing units are vacant, below the Kentucky rate of 10.3%, and down from 14.1% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 66.9% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 15%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 12.4% of the vacant stock, or 1.2% of all housing units against the 10.1% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $57,117 can pay without cost burden (~$1,428/mo), and 32.4% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 22.4% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 63.8% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Meade County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Meade County shows meaningful potential for specialty trade contractors attraction, with a 4.53x concentration and 749 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.4% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Construction and real estate cycle accounts for 64.6% of it, all of it in specialty trade contractors. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.