Teton 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 $2,079 (2.9%) 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 $70,430 is worth $74,450 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 8.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Wholesale Trade employs 150 workers (20.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $58,425. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 482 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $300M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $70,820 while Real Estate and Rental and Leasing averages $12,679, a 5.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 19.82x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 8 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 26.2% of the employment across them, the largest being freight and distribution. 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 3.7x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 75.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 16.2% of housing units are vacant, above the Montana rate of 13.2%, and up from 15.6% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 50.2% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 9.9% of the vacant stock, or 1.6% of all housing units against the 16.2% 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: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $43,333 can pay without cost burden (~$1,083/mo), and 32.3% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 27.5% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 59.9% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 9.1% 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: no college, university, or technical school is located in Teton County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Teton County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 19.82x concentration and 52 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 27.5% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans animal production and aquaculture, crop production, and merchant wholesalers, nondurable goods, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 26.2% of the employment across them, the largest being freight and distribution. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.