Allegany County, New York

• 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 $23,105 (26.9%) under the New York median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 7.9% above the national average, so the nominal median of $62,869 is worth $58,266 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 16.2%, 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 10.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Accommodation and Food Services employs 1,438 workers (25.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $22,913. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 4,165 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $145,521 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $19,723, a 7.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 5.41x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 13 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 28.2% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 1.6x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 79.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 24.8% of housing units are vacant, above the New York rate of 10%, and down from 31.9% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 70.1% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 6.3% of the vacant stock, or 1.6% of all housing units against the 24.8% 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: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $31,848 can pay without cost burden (~$796/mo), and 40.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 53.8% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 0.2% between 2019 and 2024, from 21,040 to 20,989.
• Talent pipeline: 3 institutions in Allegany County award 2,096 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Allegany County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 5.41x concentration and 103 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans animal production and aquaculture, web search portals, libraries, and archives, and fabricated metal product manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 28.2% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.