Shelby County, Kentucky

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 6.9% below the national average, so the nominal median of $82,604 is worth $88,726 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 3,490 workers (26.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $69,768. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,364 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Wholesale Trade averages $88,677 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $23,001, a 3.9x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing concentrates at 10.23x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 13 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 58.3% 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.
• High home ownership: 73.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $44,399 can pay without cost burden (~$1,110/mo), and 34.8% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 23% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 62.7% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Shelby County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Shelby County shows strong potential for plastics and rubber products manufacturing attraction, with a 10.23x concentration and 762 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23% 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. Goods manufacturing accounts for 58.3% of it, with transportation equipment manufacturing the largest single sub-sector at 20.1%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.