Morgan 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 $15,813 (24.8%) 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 $47,913 is worth $53,119 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 17.1%, 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 17.0 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Construction employs 375 workers (38.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $49,562. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,006 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $378M (2024).

• Top specialization: Construction of Buildings concentrates at 5.77x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 3 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 54% 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 2.5x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 78.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 14.1% of housing units are vacant, above the Kentucky rate of 10.3%, and down from 18.4% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 52.3% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 23.5%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 13.4% of the vacant stock, or 1.9% of all housing units against the 14.1% 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 $36,367 can pay without cost burden (~$909/mo), and 28.3% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 41.1% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 20.2% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Morgan County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Morgan County shows strong potential for construction of buildings attraction, with a 5.77x concentration and 175 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. Construction and real estate cycle accounts for 54% of it, all of it in construction of buildings. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.