Adams County, North Dakota

• 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 $14,157 (18.5%) under the North Dakota median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 11.0% below the national average, so the nominal median of $62,500 is worth $70,225 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 14.8%, 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 11.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 46 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 278 workers (53.3% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $58,161. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 132 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $169M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Construction averages $82,231 while Information averages $15,588, a 5.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation concentrates at 2.74x the national norm.
• Cluster depth: 3 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 88.6% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: freight and distribution. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 1.8x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 71.8% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 22.3% of housing units are vacant, above the North Dakota rate of 12.3%, and down from 27.6% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 43.1% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 12.8% of the vacant stock, or 2.9% of all housing units against the 22.3% 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 $31,929 can pay without cost burden (~$798/mo), and 25.9% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 27.1% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 57.8% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 18% between 2019 and 2024, from 1,203 to 986.
• Short commutes: 15.2-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Adams County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Adams County shows emerging potential for transit and ground passenger transportation attraction, with a 2.74x concentration and 8 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 27.1% 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. Freight and distribution accounts for 88.6% of it, with merchant wholesalers, durable goods the largest single sub-sector at 57.1%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.