Manistee 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 $9,359 (12.8%) 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 $63,516 is worth $66,025 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 10.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 50 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 1,231 workers (27.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $84,850. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,366 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.2B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $84,850 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $22,296, a 3.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Gasoline Stations and Fuel Dealers concentrates at 7.08x 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, but 53.5% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: resident household spending. 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 2.9x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 85.8% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 32.8% of housing units are vacant, above the Michigan rate of 11.8%, and down from 40.5% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 84.6% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 5.7% of the vacant stock, or 1.9% of all housing units against the 32.8% 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 $32,407 can pay without cost burden (~$810/mo), and 43% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 28.9% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 49.8% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 5.9% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 21.7-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Manistee County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Manistee County shows strong potential for gasoline stations and fuel dealers attraction, with a 7.08x concentration and 283 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 28.9% 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. Resident household spending accounts for 53.5% of it, with general merchandise retailers the largest single sub-sector at 17.7%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.