Hall County, Nebraska

• 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 $7,224 (9.4%) under the Nebraska median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 13.3% below the national average, so the nominal median of $69,251 is worth $79,874 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 14.1%, 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 14.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 7,653 workers (27.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $63,751. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 4,769 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $5.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $86,616 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $25,464, a 3.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing concentrates at 4.96x 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 50.6% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: goods manufacturing. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 5 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.2x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $41,024 can pay without cost burden (~$1,026/mo), and 43.7% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 68.4% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 17.5-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.

Hall County shows meaningful potential for fabricated metal product manufacturing attraction, with a 4.96x concentration and 1,653 jobs in this sub-sector.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Goods manufacturing accounts for 50.6% of it, with fabricated metal product manufacturing the largest single sub-sector at 28.5%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.