Henry 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 $42,410 (45.5%) under the Virginia median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Elevated poverty: At 16%, 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 20.2 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: Manufacturing employs 4,229 workers (35.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $57,202. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,344 and is counted separately.
• Wage stratification: Information averages $85,002 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,469, a 4.0x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Textile Mills concentrates at 31.56x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 12 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 54.2% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: goods manufacturing. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.
• Attraction whitespace: 4 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 2.7x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 75.2% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 17.2% of housing units are vacant, above the Virginia rate of 8.7%, and down from 19% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 69.5% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 5.8%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 8.6% of the vacant stock, or 1.5% of all housing units against the 17.2% 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 $35,872 can pay without cost burden (~$897/mo), and 40.6% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 27.9% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 52.2% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 0.3% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Henry County awards 699 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Henry County shows strong potential for textile mills attraction, with a 31.56x concentration and 251 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 27.9% 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. Goods manufacturing accounts for 54.2% of it, with plastics and rubber products manufacturing the largest single sub-sector at 17.7%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.