Redwood County, Minnesota

• 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 $21,196 (23.8%) under the Minnesota median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 13.5 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 1,258 workers (33.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $63,873. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,246 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.5B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Wholesale Trade averages $97,596 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $15,317, a 6.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 4.59x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 29.8% 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: 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 2.3x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 78.4% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 11.5% of housing units are vacant, above the Minnesota rate of 9.3%, and down from 14.5% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 57.8% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 7.1%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 33.7% of the vacant stock, or 3.9% of all housing units against the 11.5% 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 $31,129 can pay without cost burden (~$778/mo), and 40.8% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 24.5% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 60.6% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 17.6-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 Redwood County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Redwood County shows meaningful potential for crop production attraction, with a 4.59x concentration and 91 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.5% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans crop production, nursing and residential care facilities, and gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 29.8% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.