Meade County, South Dakota

• 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 $291 (0.4%) under the South Dakota median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 10.8% below the national average, so the nominal median of $74,790 is worth $83,845 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 7.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Construction employs 1,049 workers (20.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $61,923. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,986 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $85,039 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $23,868, a 3.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Beverage and Tobacco Product Manufacturing concentrates at 4.73x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 12 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 48.7% of the employment across them, the largest being construction and real estate cycle. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• 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: 72.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Affordable rent tiers: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $53,239 can pay without cost burden (~$1,331/mo), and 33.8% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 69.1% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 19.8-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Meade County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Meade County shows meaningful potential for beverage and tobacco product manufacturing attraction, with a 4.73x concentration and 67 jobs in this sub-sector.

The concentrated base spans beverage and tobacco product manufacturing, gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and animal production and aquaculture, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 48.7% of the employment across them, the largest being construction and real estate cycle. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.