Calhoun County, South Carolina

• 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 $10,642 (15.4%) under the South Carolina median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 6.3% below the national average, so the nominal median of $58,682 is worth $62,628 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 11.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 47 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 1,525 workers (52.3% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $79,779. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 800 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $911M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $88,385 while Retail Trade averages $23,030, a 3.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry concentrates at 11.66x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 4 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 49.4% 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.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.9x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 85% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 12.6% of housing units are vacant, below the South Carolina rate of 13.3%, and down from 17.2% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 70.6% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 19.9%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 5.8% of the vacant stock, or 0.7% of all housing units against the 12.6% 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 $38,497 can pay without cost burden (~$962/mo), and 31.4% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 28.1% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 27.8% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 55.4% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 0.6% between 2019 and 2024, from 6,660 to 6,618.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Calhoun County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Calhoun County shows strong potential for support activities for agriculture and forestry attraction, with a 11.66x concentration and 129 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 27.8% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans support activities for agriculture and forestry, utilities, and crop production, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 49.4% of the employment across them, the largest being resource and agricultural commodities. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.