Arkansas

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, affecting retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base statewide.
• Elevated poverty: At 16%, the rate supports federal funding narratives across distressed counties (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 10.0 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 188,907 workers (21.2% of the tracked sectors), at an average wage of $57,420.
• Economic scale: State GDP of $188.3B (2024).

• Top specialization: Leather and Allied Product Manufacturing concentrates at 3.92x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy.
• Cluster depth: 9 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 3.1x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 13.5% vacancy rate; potential redevelopment opportunity.

Arkansas shows meaningful potential for leather and allied product manufacturing attraction, with a 3.92x concentration and 780 jobs in this sub-sector.

Cluster depth across leather and allied product manufacturing, food manufacturing, and paper manufacturing creates supply-chain attraction leverage, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.