Cleveland County, North Carolina

• 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 $13,854 (19.1%) under the North Carolina median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 5.7% below the national average, so the nominal median of $58,534 is worth $62,072 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 16.6%, 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 13.7 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 7,075 workers (26.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $68,441. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 7,091 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $6B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $75,619 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $19,894, a 3.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Textile Mills concentrates at 30.53x 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, but 64.7% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: goods manufacturing. 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 3.4x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 70.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 12.3% of housing units are vacant, below the North Carolina rate of 12.5%, and down from 18.3% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 81.9% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 2.4%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 12.9% of the vacant stock, or 1.6% of all housing units against the 12.3% 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 $35,120 can pay without cost burden (~$878/mo), and 43.3% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 23.8% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 58.7% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 8.5% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Cleveland County award 2,145 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Cleveland County shows strong potential for textile mills attraction, with a 30.53x concentration and 579 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.8% 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. Goods manufacturing accounts for 64.7% of it, with general merchandise retailers the largest single sub-sector at 18%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.