Westchester County, New York

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 12.6% above the national average, so the nominal median of $118,976 is worth $105,663 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 17.4 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 83,263 workers (27% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $79,526. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 62,229 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $120.2B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $243,046 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $37,430, a 6.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation concentrates at 6.46x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 34% 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: 7 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.6x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $69,175 can pay without cost burden (~$1,729/mo), and 50.8% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 26.8% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 22.8% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 65.1% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: the 6 largest of 19 institutions in Westchester County award 7,392 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Westchester County shows strong potential for transit and ground passenger transportation attraction, with a 6.46x concentration and 10,150 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.8% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans transit and ground passenger transportation, private households, and funds, trusts, and other financial vehicles, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 34% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.