Lee 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 $7,001 (9.7%) 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 $65,387 is worth $69,339 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 16.5%, 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 14.4 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 8,498 workers (37.3% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $77,252. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 3,176 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $4.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $79,448 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $20,911, a 3.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Chemical Manufacturing concentrates at 14.45x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 73.1% 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: 4 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 3.7x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $44,546 can pay without cost burden (~$1,114/mo), and 39.4% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 22.3% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 60.8% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Lee County awards 1,151 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Lee County shows strong potential for chemical manufacturing attraction, with a 14.45x concentration and 2,386 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.3% 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 73.1% of it, with chemical manufacturing the largest single sub-sector at 30.1%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.