Mountrail County, North Dakota

• Income near the national median: Median household income tracks the national median, indicating a broad-based consumer market.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 11.0% below the national average, so the nominal median of $80,717 is worth $90,693 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 14.5%, 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 13.0 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 35 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction employs 1,079 workers (33.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $119,483. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,275 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $119,483 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $26,836, a 4.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Mining concentrates at 95.82x 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 36.8% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.9x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Elevated vacancy: 23.5% of housing units are vacant, above the North Dakota rate of 12.3%, and down from 35.4% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 35.8% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 17% of the vacant stock, or 4% of all housing units against the 23.5% 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 $59,677 can pay without cost burden (~$1,492/mo), and 21.1% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 63.6% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 19.1-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Mountrail County awards 29 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Mountrail County shows strong potential for support activities for mining attraction, with a 95.82x concentration and 806 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans support activities for mining, truck transportation, and gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 36.8% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.