Ontonagon 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 $18,477 (25.4%) 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 $54,398 is worth $56,547 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 17.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 60 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 380 workers (68.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $30,993. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 440 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $169M (2024).

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 55.03x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 4 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 90.2% 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 2.1x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 87.1% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 39.9% of housing units are vacant, above the Michigan rate of 11.8%, and down from 50.9% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 84.3% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 2.9% of the vacant stock, or 1.1% of all housing units against the 39.9% 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 $34,750 can pay without cost burden (~$869/mo), and 26.3% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 39.3% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 42.9% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 3.9% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Ontonagon County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Ontonagon County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 55.03x concentration and 17 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 39.3% 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 90.2% of it, with general merchandise retailers the largest single sub-sector at 41%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.