Kiowa 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 $20,077 (30.9%) 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 $44,962 is worth $51,210 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 22.9%, 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 19.0 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: Retail Trade employs 262 workers (34.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $26,488. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 632 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $255M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $140,937 while Retail Trade averages $26,488, a 5.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 18.89x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 7 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 26.2% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. 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.
• Elevated vacancy: 26.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Oklahoma rate of 12%, and down from 30.6% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 70.8% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 13.9%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 11.6% of the vacant stock, or 3% of all housing units against the 26.3% 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.
• Rent affordability gap: None of the 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $24,148 can pay without cost burden (~$604/mo), and 48.3% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 19.8% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 27.9% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 54% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 10.6% between 2019 and 2024, from 3,961 to 3,542.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Kiowa County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Kiowa County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 18.89x concentration and 49 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 27.9% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans animal production and aquaculture, utilities, and social assistance, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 26.2% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.