Northampton 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 $22,302 (30.8%) 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 $50,086 is worth $53,113 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 21.1%, 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 17.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 52 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 847 workers (30.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $40,993. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 991 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $739M (2024).

• Top specialization: Wood Product Manufacturing concentrates at 14.89x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 7 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 33.5% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.3x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 74.6% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 26.2% of housing units are vacant, above the North Carolina rate of 12.5%, and down from 26.7% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 38.9% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 3.8% of the vacant stock, or 1% of all housing units against the 26.2% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $24,059 can pay without cost burden (~$601/mo), and 37.7% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 20.6% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 31.6% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 52.3% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 4.8% between 2019 and 2024, from 7,850 to 7,473.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Northampton County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Northampton County shows strong potential for wood product manufacturing attraction, with a 14.89x concentration and 179 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 31.6% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans wood product manufacturing, forestry and logging, and gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 33.5% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.