Putnam 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 $10,683 (15.4%) under the Tennessee median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 8.1% below the national average, so the nominal median of $58,912 is worth $64,104 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 18.4%, 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 5.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 5,459 workers (19.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $37,729. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 9,281 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $5.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $78,153 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $22,140, a 3.5x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Transportation Equipment Manufacturing concentrates at 3.71x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 13 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 35.4% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 4 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.8x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $36,647 can pay without cost burden (~$916/mo), and 45.2% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 61.3% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 21.1-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 4 institutions in Putnam County award 2,793 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Putnam County shows meaningful potential for transportation equipment manufacturing attraction, with a 3.71x concentration and 1,481 jobs in this sub-sector.

The concentrated base spans transportation equipment manufacturing, furniture and related product manufacturing, and nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 35.4% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.