Skamania County, Washington

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $4,876 (5.0%) 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 5.9 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: Accommodation and Food Services employs 563 workers (42.2% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $36,161. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 629 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $432M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $159,402 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $27,586, a 5.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Beverage and Tobacco Product Manufacturing concentrates at 22.77x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 6 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 63.4% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: visitor economy. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 5.7x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 80% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 16% of housing units are vacant, above the Washington rate of 7.3%, and down from 17.9% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 72.3% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 9.4% of the vacant stock, or 1.5% of all housing units against the 16% 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 $45,375 can pay without cost burden (~$1,134/mo), and 38.3% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 21.8% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 28.4% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 57% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 8.2% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Skamania County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Skamania County shows strong potential for beverage and tobacco product manufacturing attraction, with a 22.77x concentration and 90 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 28.4% 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. Visitor economy accounts for 63.4% of it, all of it in accommodation. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.