Wise 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 $40,227 (43.2%) under the Virginia median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Elevated poverty: At 17.2%, 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 19.9 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 1,730 workers (27.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $30,855. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 3,782 and is counted separately.
• Wage stratification: Utilities averages $100,517 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $19,533, a 5.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Mining (except Oil and Gas) concentrates at 27.00x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 8 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 57.3% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: resident household spending. 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: 74.2% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 16.4% of housing units are vacant, above the Virginia rate of 8.7%, and down from 16.9% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 76.7% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 2.3%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 17.5% of the vacant stock, or 2.9% of all housing units against the 16.4% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $42,910 can pay without cost burden (~$1,073/mo), and 28.5% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Low participation: 46.4% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 4% between 2019 and 2024, from 14,288 to 13,719.
• Talent pipeline: 2 institutions in Wise County award 1,208 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Wise County shows strong potential for mining (except oil and gas) attraction, with a 27.00x concentration and 279 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. Resident household spending accounts for 57.3% of it, with food and beverage retailers the largest single sub-sector at 27.3%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.