Erie County, Ohio

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 10.7% below the national average, so the nominal median of $71,993 is worth $80,619 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 6.7 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 45 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Accommodation and Food Services employs 5,507 workers (19.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $25,084. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 4,971 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $5.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $96,831 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $25,084, a 3.9x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing concentrates at 17.78x 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, but 54.6% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: visitor economy. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 5 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed and clear the local siting screen on energy cost, freight access and land base, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.8x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 71.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 15.7% of housing units are vacant, above the Ohio rate of 8.1%, and down from 17.6% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 47.9% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 14.5% of the vacant stock, or 2.3% of all housing units against the 15.7% 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 $43,131 can pay without cost burden (~$1,078/mo), and 38.9% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 25.9% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 61.7% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 21.5-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 4 institutions in Erie County award 839 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Erie County shows strong potential for petroleum and coal products manufacturing attraction, with a 17.78x concentration and 463 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 25.9% 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. Visitor economy accounts for 54.6% of it, with amusement, gambling, and recreation industries the largest single sub-sector at 36.5%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.