Dewey County, Oklahoma

• 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 $2,470 (3.8%) under the Oklahoma median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 12.2% below the national average, so the nominal median of $62,569 is worth $71,263 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 14.1%, 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 13.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction employs 861 workers (62.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $109,890. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 468 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $720M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $118,756 while Retail Trade averages $26,033, a 4.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Utilities concentrates at 21.30x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 5 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 48.5% of the employment across them, the largest being utilities and energy delivery. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.1x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 76.4% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 25.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Oklahoma rate of 12%, and down from 31% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 77.8% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 4.9%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 14.2% of the vacant stock, or 3.6% of all housing units against the 25.3% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $42,401 can pay without cost burden (~$1,060/mo), and 23.9% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 24.3% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 57.5% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 12.8% between 2019 and 2024, from 2,183 to 1,903.
• Short commutes: 19.6-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Dewey County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Dewey County shows strong potential for utilities attraction, with a 21.30x concentration and 173 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.3% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans utilities, gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and credit intermediation and related activities, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 48.5% of the employment across them, the largest being utilities and energy delivery. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.