Ferry County, Washington

• 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 $42,527 (43.3%) under the Washington median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 20.5 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 53 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 134 workers (41.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $30,246. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 877 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $279M (2024).

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 53.78x 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, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 38.8% 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.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.1x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 78.1% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 23% of housing units are vacant, above the Washington rate of 7.3%, and down from 32.4% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 62.7% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 8.5% of the vacant stock, or 2% of all housing units against the 23% 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 $33,197 can pay without cost burden (~$830/mo), and 34.3% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 32.4% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 42.7% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 4.6% between 2019 and 2024, from 2,818 to 2,689.
• Short commutes: 21.3-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Ferry County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Ferry County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 53.78x concentration and 16 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 32.4% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans forestry and logging, support activities for agriculture and forestry, and gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 38.8% of the employment across them, the largest being resident household spending. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.