Bernalillo County, New Mexico

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 4.5% below the national average, so the nominal median of $69,473 is worth $72,747 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 15.2%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 55,103 workers (22.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $59,978. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 64,674 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $54.8B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $115,446 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $27,299, a 4.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Sporting Goods, Hobby, Musical Instrument, Book, and Misc. Retailers concentrates at 1.91x the national norm.
• Cluster depth: 4 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 58.6% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: business and professional services. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 6 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 4.2x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Affordable rent tiers: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $44,381 can pay without cost burden (~$1,110/mo), and 48.9% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 62.4% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: the 6 largest of 10 institutions in Bernalillo County award 14,319 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Bernalillo County shows emerging potential for sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book, and misc. retailers attraction, with a 1.91x concentration and 6,018 jobs in this sub-sector.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Business and professional services accounts for 58.6% of it, all of it in professional, scientific, and technical services. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.