Alabama

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, affecting retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base statewide.
• Elevated poverty: At 15.6%, the rate supports federal funding narratives across distressed counties (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 7.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Manufacturing employs 284,137 workers (18.6% of the tracked sectors), at an average wage of $77,221.
• Economic scale: State GDP of $325.3B (2024).

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 5.85x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base across the state.
• Attraction whitespace: 8 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.3x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 70.2% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 14.5% vacancy rate; potential redevelopment opportunity.

Alabama shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 5.85x concentration and 3,644 jobs in this sub-sector.

Cluster depth across forestry and logging, primary metal manufacturing, and textile mills creates supply-chain attraction leverage, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.