Lyon County, Minnesota

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $13,759 (15.4%) under the Minnesota median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 2,643 workers (27% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $55,587. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,324 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $85,792 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $20,339, a 4.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Food Manufacturing concentrates at 7.85x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 12 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 31.1% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• 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: 72.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 10.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Minnesota rate of 9.3%, and down from 11.2% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 47.6% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 3.6%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 30.4% of the vacant stock, or 3.1% of all housing units against the 10.3% headline vacancy rate. That is the figure to plan an incoming employer's housing against, 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 $38,438 can pay without cost burden (~$961/mo), and 38.4% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 67.5% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 14.6-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Lyon County awards 642 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Lyon County shows strong potential for food manufacturing attraction, with a 7.85x concentration and 1,165 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans food manufacturing, wood product manufacturing, and animal production and aquaculture, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 31.1% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.