Iron County, Wisconsin

• 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 $16,860 (21.8%) under the Wisconsin median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living stretches income further: Local prices run 5.9% below the national average, so the nominal median of $60,625 is worth $64,426 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 9.7 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 56 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 273 workers (27% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $36,395. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 375 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $235M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Information averages $54,344 while Retail Trade averages $25,966, a 2.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Wood Product Manufacturing concentrates at 41.71x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 4 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 46.2% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.7x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 88.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 44.1% of housing units are vacant, above the Wisconsin rate of 10.8%, and down from 52.2% in 2019.
• Mostly second homes: seasonal, recreational and occasional-use units are 85.8% of vacant units, so the headline rate is not available supply.
• Genuinely available supply: units listed for rent or for sale are 5% of the vacant stock, or 2.2% of all housing units against the 44.1% 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 $26,528 can pay without cost burden (~$663/mo), and 34.2% of renter households are already cost-burdened, 16.5% severely so; workforce housing cost burden warrants attention.

• Succession risk is real: 34.5% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 52.6% labor force participation against a labor force that grew 4% between 2019 and 2024, so workforce development programs may unlock additional supply.
• Short commutes: 21.9-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: no college, university, or technical school is located in Iron County per the IPEDS institutional directory, so any training pipeline serving it runs through institutions outside the county.

Iron County shows strong potential for wood product manufacturing attraction, with a 41.71x concentration and 170 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 34.5% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The concentrated base spans wood product manufacturing, gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and social assistance, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 46.2% of the employment across them, the largest being goods manufacturing. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.