Victoria 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 $7,580 (9.7%) under the Texas median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 10.2% below the national average, so the nominal median of $70,896 is worth $78,949 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 16.2%, 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 15.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 5,675 workers (21.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $38,584. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 6,622 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $6.2B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $119,705 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $22,440, a 5.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Mining concentrates at 23.32x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 15 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 43.2% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 6 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 3.0x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 11.7% of housing units are vacant, above the Texas rate of 9.4%, and down from 13.2% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 47.6% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 6%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 44.3% of the vacant stock, or 5.2% of all housing units against the 11.7% 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.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $46,619 can pay without cost burden (~$1,165/mo), and 45% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 61.7% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 21.9-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 3 institutions in Victoria County award 663 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Victoria County shows strong potential for support activities for mining attraction, with a 23.32x concentration and 1,409 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans support activities for mining, pipeline transportation, and utilities, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 43.2% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.