Puerto Rico

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, affecting retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base statewide.
• Elevated poverty: At 40.5%, the rate supports federal funding narratives across distressed counties (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 5.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 45 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 133,168 workers (21.1% of the tracked sectors), at an average wage of $26,848. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 192,447 and is counted separately.
• Wage stratification: Management of Companies and Enterprises averages $65,918 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $20,834, a 3.2x spread in the same economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Apparel Manufacturing concentrates at 14.25x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity.
• Cluster depth: 13 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base across the state.
• Attraction whitespace: 8 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 5.0x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 21% vacancy rate; potential redevelopment 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 $16,881 can pay without cost burden (~$422/mo), and 29.5% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 15.6% severely so.

• 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.
• Low participation: only 47.7% of the population aged 18+ is in the labor force, suggesting untapped capacity; workforce development may unlock supply.

Puerto Rico shows strong potential for apparel manufacturing attraction, with a 14.25x concentration and 6,366 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.4% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

Cluster depth across apparel manufacturing, miscellaneous manufacturing, and health and personal care retailers creates supply-chain attraction leverage, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.