Randolph 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 $17,669 (25.0%) 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 $53,033 is worth $58,406 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 17.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 1,217 workers (25.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $34,204. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,996 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.6B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $77,292 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $11,845, a 6.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Rental and Leasing Services concentrates at 5.69x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 11 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 40.4% 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.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.0x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 71.4% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 14.9% of housing units are vacant, above the Missouri rate of 11.2%, and down from 20% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 79.9% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 9.8%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 7% of the vacant stock, or 1% of all housing units against the 14.9% 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 $31,648 can pay without cost burden (~$791/mo), and 41.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 56.1% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 0.6% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 21.8-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Randolph County award 905 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Randolph County shows strong potential for rental and leasing services attraction, with a 5.69x concentration and 177 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans rental and leasing services, crop production, and building material and garden supply retailers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 40.4% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.