Raleigh County, West 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 $7,458 (12.5%) under the West Virginia median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 11.6% below the national average, so the nominal median of $52,150 is worth $58,993 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at metro level, not county level.
• Elevated poverty: At 22.8%, 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 13.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 43 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 6,684 workers (28.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $55,734. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 5,549 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $4.5B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $110,281 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $22,741, a 4.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Mining (except Oil and Gas) concentrates at 53.54x 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 38.3% 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.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.9x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 75.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 16.2% of housing units are vacant, above the West Virginia rate of 15.4%, and up from 13.7% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 71.7% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 8.8%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 14.9% of the vacant stock, or 2.4% of all housing units against the 16.2% 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 $27,325 can pay without cost burden (~$683/mo), and 43.4% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 29.1% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Low participation: 48% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 8.1% between 2019 and 2024, from 31,116 to 28,608.
• Talent pipeline: 5 institutions in Raleigh County award 700 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Raleigh County shows strong potential for mining (except oil and gas) attraction, with a 53.54x concentration and 2,013 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans mining (except oil and gas), postal service, and gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 38.3% of the employment across them, the largest being health care economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.