Grant County, New Mexico

• 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 $19,101 (29.8%) under the New Mexico median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 7.8% below the national average, so the nominal median of $44,958 is worth $48,761 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 19.5%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Aging population: Median age of 50 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 1,007 workers (24.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $31,478. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,805 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Management of Companies and Enterprises averages $92,736 while Manufacturing averages $28,931, a 3.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 2.26x the national norm.
• Cluster depth: 7 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 69.3% 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: 3 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 3.9x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 75.8% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 23.4% of housing units are vacant, above the New Mexico rate of 12.5%, and up from 21.4% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 68.7% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 19%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 11.4% of the vacant stock, or 2.7% of all housing units against the 23.4% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $30,710 can pay without cost burden (~$768/mo), and 40.3% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 23.4% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 26.9% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 45.1% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 2.8% between 2019 and 2024, from 10,896 to 10,586.
• Short commutes: 17.9-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.

Grant County shows emerging potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 2.26x concentration and 30 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 26.9% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Business and professional services accounts for 69.3% of it, with administrative and support services the largest single sub-sector at 65.9%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.