Cameron County, Texas

• 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 $25,875 (33.0%) under the Texas median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 14.0% below the national average, so the nominal median of $52,601 is worth $61,164 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 24.8%, 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 13.6 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 33 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 44,434 workers (38.3% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $35,248. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 27,827 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $17.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $133,497 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,545, a 6.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Fishing, Hunting and Trapping concentrates at 3.10x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 81.8% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: health care economy. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 5 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.6x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Texas rate of 9.4%, and down from 17.5% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 46.2% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 19.4% of the vacant stock, or 2.6% of all housing units against the 13.3% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, and the gap between the two is the redevelopment and conversion opportunity.
• Affordable rent tiers: 1 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $34,595 can pay without cost burden (~$865/mo), and 44.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 58% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 8.2% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 21.3-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: the 6 largest of 7 institutions in Cameron County award 2,419 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Cameron County shows meaningful potential for fishing, hunting and trapping attraction, with a 3.10x concentration and 22 jobs in this sub-sector.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Health care economy accounts for 81.8% of it, with ambulatory health care services the largest single sub-sector at 48%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.