Ellis 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 $4,023 (6.2%) 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 $61,016 is worth $69,494 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 14.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 44 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 91 workers (27.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $33,698. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 444 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $108,699 while Construction averages $32,125, a 3.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 38.29x 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 33.1% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.0x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 82.1% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 30.5% of housing units are vacant, above the Oklahoma rate of 12%, and up from 29% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 80.6% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 4.2%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 11.7% of the vacant stock, or 3.6% of all housing units against the 30.5% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $44,950 can pay without cost burden (~$1,124/mo), and 24.2% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 23.4% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 54.9% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 13.8% between 2019 and 2024, from 1,912 to 1,648.
• Short commutes: 21.9-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 Ellis County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Ellis County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 38.29x concentration and 52 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.4% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans animal production and aquaculture, utilities, and gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 33.1% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.