Polk County, Tennessee

• 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 $7,073 (10.2%) under the Tennessee median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 11.9% below the national average, so the nominal median of $62,522 is worth $70,967 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 19.1 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: Retail Trade employs 378 workers (23.4% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $32,935. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 729 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $483M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $86,368 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $14,367, a 6.0x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Gasoline Stations and Fuel Dealers concentrates at 4.62x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 6 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 60% 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.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.7x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 83.6% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 18.1% of housing units are vacant, above the Tennessee rate of 10.2%, and up from 16.9% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 27.7% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 4.8% of the vacant stock, or 0.9% of all housing units against the 18.1% 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 $26,635 can pay without cost burden (~$666/mo), and 34.1% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 20.3% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 26.8% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 53.5% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 3.1% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Polk County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Polk County shows meaningful potential for gasoline stations and fuel dealers attraction, with a 4.62x concentration and 74 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 26.8% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Resident household spending accounts for 60% of it, with nursing and residential care facilities the largest single sub-sector at 25.3%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.