Wasco County, Oregon

• 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 $18,836 (22.7%) under the Oregon median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 3.4% above the national average, so the nominal median of $64,175 is worth $62,065 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 13.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 2,239 workers (31% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $64,532. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,141 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Information averages $231,278 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $27,609, a 8.4x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 35.35x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 8 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 43.5% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.7x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.4% of housing units are vacant, above the Oregon rate of 7.5%, and up from 11.8% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 42.8% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 10.3% of the vacant stock, or 1.4% of all housing units against the 13.4% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, 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 $36,455 can pay without cost burden (~$911/mo), and 38.7% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 23.3% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 22.4% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Healthy participation: 60% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 18.9-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Wasco County awards 184 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Wasco County shows strong potential for crop production attraction, with a 35.35x concentration and 1,317 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.4% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans crop production, wood product manufacturing, and beverage and tobacco product manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 43.5% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.