McKean County, Pennsylvania

• 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 $15,066 (19.3%) under the Pennsylvania median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 14.9 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: Manufacturing employs 2,874 workers (27.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $70,042. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,261 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.2B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $82,611 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $18,330, a 4.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Oil and Gas Extraction concentrates at 12.19x 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 39.2% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 1.7x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 78% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 15.9% of housing units are vacant, above the Pennsylvania rate of 9.2%, and down from 19.4% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 54.3% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 5.8% of the vacant stock, or 0.9% of all housing units against the 15.9% 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: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $38,542 can pay without cost burden (~$964/mo), and 35.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 24.6% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 54.5% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 6.4% between 2019 and 2024, from 19,391 to 18,156.
• Short commutes: 20.4-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in McKean County awards 223 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

McKean County shows strong potential for oil and gas extraction attraction, with a 12.19x concentration and 123 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.6% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans oil and gas extraction, support activities for mining, and wood product manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 39.2% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.