Whitman 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 $42,735 (43.5%) under the Washington median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Elevated poverty: At 22.7%, 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 14.1 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.
• Young population: Median age of 26 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest private-sector industry: Manufacturing employs 3,118 workers (31.5% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $95,233. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 8,008 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $3.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $100,958 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $24,160, a 4.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 8.39x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 26.1% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 6.5x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• Renter-majority market: 46.8% owner-occupied; flexible labor mobility but consider home-buying pipeline if attracting families.
• Elevated vacancy: 15.3% of housing units are vacant, above the Washington rate of 7.3%, and up from 13.6% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is units for rent at 59.5% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 5.3%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 62.4% of the vacant stock, or 9.5% of all housing units against the 15.3% headline vacancy rate. That is the figure to plan an incoming employer's housing against, 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 $29,191 can pay without cost burden (~$730/mo), and 55.9% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 37.2% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Healthy participation: 62.4% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Short commutes: 16.5-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.

Whitman County shows strong potential for crop production attraction, with a 8.39x concentration and 362 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans crop production, computer and electronic product manufacturing, and merchant wholesalers, nondurable goods, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 26.1% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.