Pontotoc 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 $2,022 (3.1%) 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 $63,017 is worth $71,773 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 5.4 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 2,745 workers (27.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $54,528. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 9,120 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.8B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Wholesale Trade averages $65,827 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $20,637, a 3.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Mining (except Oil and Gas) concentrates at 7.96x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 11 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 31.5% 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.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.8x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.7% of housing units are vacant, above the Oklahoma rate of 12%, and down from 15.4% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 52.7% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 3.3%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 40.5% of the vacant stock, or 5.5% of all housing units against the 13.7% 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 $40,073 can pay without cost burden (~$1,002/mo), and 34.4% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 61.3% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 17.7-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Pontotoc County award 1,111 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Pontotoc County shows strong potential for mining (except oil and gas) attraction, with a 7.96x concentration and 129 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans mining (except oil and gas), nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing, and rental and leasing services, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 31.5% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.