Alleghany County, Virginia

• 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 $36,982 (39.7%) under the Virginia median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 21.1 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 48 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 830 workers (47% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $48,231. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 828 and is counted separately.
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $76,493 while Retail Trade averages $33,967, a 2.3x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Wood Product Manufacturing concentrates at 9.89x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 6 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 55.6% 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.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.2x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 82.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 19.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Virginia rate of 8.7%, and up from 17.8% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 54.1% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 23.5%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 9.3% of the vacant stock, or 1.8% of all housing units against the 19.3% 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: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $31,276 can pay without cost burden (~$782/mo), and 35% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 28.2% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 48.2% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 1.9% between 2019 and 2024, from 6,180 to 6,060.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Alleghany County awards 331 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Alleghany County shows strong potential for wood product manufacturing attraction, with a 9.89x concentration and 72 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 28.2% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

Most of the employment across the concentrated sub-sectors traces back to a single source of demand. Health care economy accounts for 55.6% of it, all of it in nursing and residential care facilities. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.