Morgan County, Ohio

• 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 $12,038 (16.9%) under the Ohio median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 7.2% below the national average, so the nominal median of $59,351 is worth $63,956 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 21.3 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: Manufacturing employs 533 workers (33.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $67,472. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 675 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $516M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $67,472 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $15,408, a 4.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Gasoline Stations and Fuel Dealers concentrates at 2.19x the national norm.
• Cluster depth: 5 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 53.1% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: health care economy. 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 2.5x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 78.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 22% of housing units are vacant, above the Ohio rate of 8.1%, and down from 23.5% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 62.4% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 6% of the vacant stock, or 1.3% of all housing units against the 22% 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: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $30,405 can pay without cost burden (~$760/mo), and 39.1% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 26.4% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 51.1% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 6.3% between 2019 and 2024, from 6,083 to 5,701.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Morgan County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Morgan County shows emerging potential for gasoline stations and fuel dealers attraction, with a 2.19x concentration and 40 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 26.4% 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. Health care economy accounts for 53.1% of it, all of it in ambulatory health care services. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.