Taylor 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 $1,813 (3.0%) under the West Virginia median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 10.5% below the national average, so the nominal median of $57,795 is worth $64,575 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 15.2 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 44 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest private-sector industry: Retail Trade employs 415 workers (37.3% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $36,587. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 1,079 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $854M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Information averages $150,218 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $20,953, a 7.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers concentrates at 2.01x the national norm.
• Cluster depth: 3 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, but 59.5% of the employment across them depends on one source of demand: health care economy. Read the count as depth within that single demand base rather than as spread across separate ones.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.6x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 83.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Vacancy level: 11.2% of housing units are vacant, below the West Virginia rate of 15.4%, and down from 12% in 2019.
• Vacancy composition: the largest vacancy category is other vacant at 66.6% of vacant units, with seasonal and recreational use at 15%.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 15.4% of the vacant stock, or 1.7% of all housing units against the 11.2% 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 $31,848 can pay without cost burden (~$796/mo), and 33.4% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Succession risk is real: 24% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 53.6% labor force participation. The labor force itself fell 1.8% between 2019 and 2024, from 7,381 to 7,248.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Taylor County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Taylor County shows emerging potential for motor vehicle and parts dealers attraction, with a 2.01x concentration and 74 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24% 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. Health care economy accounts for 59.5% of it, all of it in social assistance. Recruitment that widens the demand base changes that exposure; recruitment inside the same base deepens it.