Pike 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 $18,653 (26.1%) 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 $52,736 is worth $56,828 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 21.3%, 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 19.4 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Administrative and Support and Waste Management employs 2,320 workers (39.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $102,511. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,406 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.6B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Administrative and Support and Waste Management averages $102,511 while Retail Trade averages $32,290, a 3.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Waste Management and Remediation Services concentrates at 58.87x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 8 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 53.6% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: business and professional services. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.1x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 10.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Ohio rate of 8.1%, and down from 14.7% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 64.8% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 13.1%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 20.1% of the vacant stock, or 2.1% of all housing units against the 10.3% 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 $32,581 can pay without cost burden (~$815/mo), and 38.3% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 23.9% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 50.8% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 2.1% between 2019 and 2024, from 11,216 to 10,982.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Pike County awards 43 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Pike County shows strong potential for waste management and remediation services attraction, with a 58.87x concentration and 2,114 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.9% 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. Business and professional services accounts for 53.6% of it, all of it in waste management and remediation services. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.