Pottawatomie 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 $3,641 (5.6%) 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 $61,398 is worth $69,929 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 15.9%, 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 15.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 3,098 workers (22.5% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $56,143. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 6,260 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.8B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Manufacturing averages $66,486 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $20,587, a 3.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing concentrates at 8.31x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 46.9% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. 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 2.7x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 70.4% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 11.2% of housing units are vacant, below the Oklahoma rate of 12%, and down from 13% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 81.5% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 4.3%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 11.9% of the vacant stock, or 1.3% of all housing units against the 11.2% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $38,994 can pay without cost burden (~$975/mo), and 36.2% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 54.5% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 0.7% between 2019 and 2024, from 32,170 to 31,934.
• Talent pipeline: 4 institutions in Pottawatomie County award 836 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Pottawatomie County shows strong potential for plastics and rubber products manufacturing attraction, with a 8.31x concentration and 725 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans plastics and rubber products manufacturing, nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing, and support activities for mining, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 46.9% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.