McKenzie County, North Dakota

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 11.0% below the national average, so the nominal median of $93,404 is worth $104,948 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 16.6 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 32 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction employs 1,960 workers (29.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $133,390. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,891 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $4.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $133,390 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $29,801, a 4.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Pipeline Transportation concentrates at 234.22x 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, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 33.2% of the employment across them, the largest being freight and distribution. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• 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 3.7x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 22.6% of housing units are vacant, above the North Dakota rate of 12.3%, and down from 35.2% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 28.4% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 38.7% of the vacant stock, or 8.7% of all housing units against the 22.6% 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: 4 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $83,781 can pay without cost burden (~$2,095/mo), and 20.4% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 69.8% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in McKenzie County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

McKenzie County shows strong potential for pipeline transportation attraction, with a 234.22x concentration and 876 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans pipeline transportation, support activities for mining, and rental and leasing services, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 33.2% of the employment across them, the largest being freight and distribution. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.