Montgomery 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 $20,455 (22.0%) under the Virginia median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 7.3% below the national average, so the nominal median of $72,715 is worth $78,441 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 23.9%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 13.1 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.
• Young population: Median age of 30 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 5,243 workers (19.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $70,427. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 14,807 and is counted separately.
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $96,689 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $23,740, a 4.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Electrical Equipment, Appliance Manufacturing concentrates at 14.98x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 5 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 51.1% 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.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 4.2x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.6% of housing units are vacant, above the Virginia rate of 8.7%, and up from 11.4% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 37.9% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 11.2%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 19% of the vacant stock, or 2.6% of all housing units against the 13.6% headline vacancy rate. Absorbable supply for an incoming employer is thin, 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 $36,307 can pay without cost burden (~$908/mo), and 44.4% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 29.1% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Low participation: 57% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 2% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 18.2-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Montgomery County award 10,490 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Montgomery County shows strong potential for electrical equipment, appliance manufacturing attraction, with a 14.98x concentration and 1,414 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. Goods manufacturing accounts for 51.1% of it, with electrical equipment, appliance manufacturing the largest single sub-sector at 41.4%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.