Marquette 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 $7,446 (10.2%) 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 $65,429 is worth $68,014 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 4,928 workers (26.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $59,756. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 4,927 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $3.6B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $115,681 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $22,902, a 5.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 10.48x 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 44.3% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 5 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.3x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 15.9% of housing units are vacant, above the Michigan rate of 11.8%, and down from 23.8% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 66.7% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 8.2% of the vacant stock, or 1.3% of all housing units against the 15.9% 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: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $34,068 can pay without cost burden (~$852/mo), and 51% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 59.6% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 3.8% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 18.0-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Marquette County awards 1,790 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Marquette County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 10.48x concentration and 80 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans forestry and logging, miscellaneous manufacturing, and sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book, and misc. retailers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 44.3% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.