Maverick 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 $28,908 (36.8%) under the Texas median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 16.2% below the national average, so the nominal median of $49,568 is worth $59,150 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 22.8%, 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 21.4 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 30 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 2,399 workers (33.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $31,338. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 6,632 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.5B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Construction averages $56,336 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,513, a 2.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Transportation concentrates at 5.13x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 56.1% 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.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.2x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 70.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 11.6% of housing units are vacant, above the Texas rate of 9.4%, and up from 11.4% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 35.2% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 17.3% of the vacant stock, or 2% of all housing units against the 11.6% 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 $34,079 can pay without cost burden (~$852/mo), and 40% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 58.1% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 2% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 21.8-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.

Maverick County shows strong potential for support activities for transportation attraction, with a 5.13x concentration and 390 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Health care economy accounts for 56.1% of it, with ambulatory health care services the largest single sub-sector at 39.6%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.