Pulaski County, Missouri

• 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 $6,236 (8.8%) under the Missouri median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 9.2% below the national average, so the nominal median of $64,466 is worth $70,998 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 9.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 28 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Accommodation and Food Services employs 2,752 workers (38.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $29,505. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 5,170 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $87,111 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $29,505, a 3.0x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Gasoline Stations and Fuel Dealers concentrates at 4.11x 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, but 62.9% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: visitor economy. 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 2.9x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Missouri rate of 11.2%, and down from 20.6% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is units for rent at 31.3% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 23.9%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 39.7% of the vacant stock, or 5.3% of all housing units against the 13.3% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $56,675 can pay without cost burden (~$1,417/mo), and 29.8% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 69.9% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 19.5-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Pulaski County award 64 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Pulaski County shows meaningful potential for gasoline stations and fuel dealers attraction, with a 4.11x concentration and 258 jobs in this sub-sector.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Visitor economy accounts for 62.9% of it, with food services and drinking places the largest single sub-sector at 53.7%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.