Barnes 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 $8,619 (11.2%) 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 $68,038 is worth $76,447 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Aging population: Median age of 44 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 864 workers (27.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $45,787. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,010 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $853M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $98,634 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $19,533, a 5.0x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 6.94x 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 44.3% 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 2.6x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 70.8% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.9% of housing units are vacant, above the North Dakota rate of 12.3%, and down from 14.9% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 29.4% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 31.7% of the vacant stock, or 4.4% of all housing units against the 13.9% headline vacancy rate. That is the figure to plan an incoming employer's housing against, 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 $33,727 can pay without cost burden (~$843/mo), and 30.5% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 24.7% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 62.1% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 19.5-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Barnes County awards 443 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Barnes County shows strong potential for crop production attraction, with a 6.94x concentration and 94 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.7% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans crop production, nursing and residential care facilities, and merchant wholesalers, nondurable goods, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 44.3% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.