Jefferson 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 $24,093 (24.5%) under the Washington median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 8.2 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.
• Aging population: Median age of 60 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 1,126 workers (19.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $38,374. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 2,727 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.9B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $105,999 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $27,193, a 3.9x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 7.37x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 14 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 50.4% 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.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 7.2x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 79% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 16.4% of housing units are vacant, above the Washington rate of 7.3%, and down from 21% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 58.2% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 7.5% of the vacant stock, or 1.2% 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: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $52,205 can pay without cost burden (~$1,305/mo), and 40.9% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 33.9% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 43.9% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 7% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 21.3-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Jefferson County awards 33 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Jefferson County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 7.37x concentration and 97 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 33.9% 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. Resident household spending accounts for 50.4% of it, with food and beverage retailers the largest single sub-sector at 20.4%. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.