Liberty County, Montana

• 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 $14,652 (20.2%) under the Montana median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 5.4% below the national average, so the nominal median of $57,857 is worth $61,160 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 25.8%, 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 7.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Transportation and Warehousing employs 50 workers (68.5% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $70,855. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 148 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $324M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Transportation and Warehousing averages $70,855 while Other Services (except Public Administration) averages $16,080, a 4.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Merchant Wholesalers, Nondurable Goods concentrates at 2.14x the national norm.

• 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: 13.5% of housing units are vacant, above the Montana rate of 13.2%, and down from 20.7% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 36.3% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 6.2% of the vacant stock, or 0.8% of all housing units against the 13.5% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $50,583 can pay without cost burden (~$1,265/mo), and 30.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 57.9% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 27.9% between 2019 and 2024, from 1,154 to 832.
• Short commutes: 16.5-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 Liberty County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Liberty County shows emerging potential for merchant wholesalers, nondurable goods attraction, with a 2.14x concentration and 13 jobs in this sub-sector.