Santa Isabel Municipio, Puerto Rico

• 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 $502 (1.9%) under the Puerto Rico median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Elevated poverty: At 41.8%, 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 5.4 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 1,248 workers (46% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $23,392. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 677 and is counted separately.
• Wage stratification: Information averages $35,042 while Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting averages $14,202, a 2.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Clothing, Clothing Accessories, Shoe, and Jewelry Retailers concentrates at 4.47x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 3 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 100% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: resident household spending. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.2x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 77.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 21% of housing units are vacant, level with the Puerto Rico rate of 21%, and up from 19.9% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 33% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 10.7% of the vacant stock, or 2.2% of all housing units against the 21% 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 $16,071 can pay without cost burden (~$402/mo), and 25.9% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 16% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Low participation: 48.5% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 4.2% between 2019 and 2024, from 8,602 to 8,242.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Santa Isabel Municipio per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Santa Isabel Municipio shows meaningful potential for clothing, clothing accessories, shoe, and jewelry retailers attraction, with a 4.47x concentration and 228 jobs in this sub-sector.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Resident household spending accounts for 100% of it, with clothing, clothing accessories, shoe, and jewelry retailers the largest single sub-sector at 44.3%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.