Houghton County, Michigan

• 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 $13,976 (19.2%) under the Michigan median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 3.8% below the national average, so the nominal median of $58,899 is worth $61,226 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 16.5%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Young population: Median age of 32 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 1,771 workers (21% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $66,194. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 3,297 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.6B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Information averages $100,873 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $19,400, a 5.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 19.95x 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 35% 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.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.7x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 71.8% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 24.2% of housing units are vacant, above the Michigan rate of 11.8%, and down from 28.8% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 66.9% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 8% of the vacant stock, or 1.9% of all housing units against the 24.2% 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 $32,103 can pay without cost burden (~$803/mo), and 51% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 57.8% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 11.3% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 15.6-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Houghton County awards 1,754 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Houghton County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 19.95x concentration and 63 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans forestry and logging, construction of buildings, and computing infrastructure providers and data processing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 35% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.