Prentiss County, Mississippi

• 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 $6,723 (11.9%) under the Mississippi median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 13.0% below the national average, so the nominal median of $49,724 is worth $57,154 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 16.8%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 16.0 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 1,536 workers (34.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $55,671. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,570 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $799M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $61,270 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $17,773, a 3.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing concentrates at 16.71x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 38.2% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.5x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 77.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 13.2% of housing units are vacant, below the Mississippi rate of 14.6%, and down from 18.4% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 83.9% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 5.3%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 7% of the vacant stock, or 0.9% of all housing units against the 13.2% 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 $30,966 can pay without cost burden (~$774/mo), and 26.4% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 54.4% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 4% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Prentiss County awards 704 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Prentiss County shows strong potential for plastics and rubber products manufacturing attraction, with a 16.71x concentration and 491 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans plastics and rubber products manufacturing, forestry and logging, and wood product manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 38.2% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.