Walthall 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 $7,542 (13.4%) 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 $48,905 is worth $56,213 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 18.8%, 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 22.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 293 workers (30% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $29,445. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 614 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $383M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $65,312 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $9,813, a 6.7x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Truck Transportation concentrates at 5.19x 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 32.3% 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 2.6x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 80.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 23.5% of housing units are vacant, above the Mississippi rate of 14.6%, and up from 23.1% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 87.6% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 10.9%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 1.5% of the vacant stock, or 0.4% of all housing units against the 23.5% 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 $33,021 can pay without cost burden (~$826/mo), and 28% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 50.1% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 0.6% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Walthall County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Walthall County shows strong potential for truck transportation attraction, with a 5.19x concentration and 97 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans truck transportation, machinery manufacturing, and social assistance, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 32.3% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.