Nacogdoches 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 $24,921 (31.8%) under the Texas median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Elevated poverty: At 21.8%, 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 7.5 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Young population: Median age of 32 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 3,300 workers (21.1% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $60,502. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 5,202 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $3.7B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $82,987 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $16,504, a 5.0x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Wood Product Manufacturing concentrates at 9.99x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 13 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 44.6% 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 3.2x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.2% of housing units are vacant, above the Texas rate of 9.4%, and down from 16.5% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 52.2% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 17.6%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 23.4% of the vacant stock, or 3.1% of all housing units against the 13.2% headline vacancy rate. That is the figure to plan an incoming employer's housing against, 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 $30,119 can pay without cost burden (~$753/mo), and 52.2% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 31.1% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Healthy participation: 61.5% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 20.1-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Nacogdoches County awards 2,895 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Nacogdoches County shows strong potential for wood product manufacturing attraction, with a 9.99x concentration and 522 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans wood product manufacturing, animal production and aquaculture, and forestry and logging, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 44.6% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.