Jefferson 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 $19,673 (22.9%) under the New York median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 12.3% below the national average, so the nominal median of $66,301 is worth $75,600 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 9.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 34 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 7,377 workers (28.5% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $64,678. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 11,035 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $8.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $76,821 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $26,151, a 2.9x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 8.14x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 14 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 49.4% 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: 6 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 2.8x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Elevated vacancy: 23% of housing units are vacant, above the New York rate of 10%, and down from 28.7% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 63.3% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 10.6% of the vacant stock, or 2.4% of all housing units against the 23% 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 $46,409 can pay without cost burden (~$1,160/mo), and 44.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 64.6% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 19.5-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Jefferson County award 381 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Jefferson County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 8.14x concentration and 488 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans animal production and aquaculture, transit and ground passenger transportation, and paper manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 49.4% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.