Rio Grande County, Colorado

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Elevated poverty: At 18%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting employs 809 workers (30.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $44,269.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $580M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Wholesale Trade averages $84,216 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,392, a 3.9x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry concentrates at 44.74x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 3 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.7x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 22.4% vacancy rate. In resort, rural, and seasonal markets much of this is recreational/seasonal (second homes), not available supply; confirm the vacancy-by-reason split before treating it as a redevelopment opportunity.
• Affordable rent tiers: 4 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,610/mo).

• Succession risk is real: 23.8% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Short commutes: 19.2-minute mean commute is a quality-of-life and labor-access advantage worth surfacing for site selectors.
• Talent pipeline: 6 regional institutions feed the workforce; the top three combined produce 25,233 annual credentials.

Rio Grande County shows strong potential for support activities for agriculture and forestry attraction, with a 44.74x concentration and 480 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 23.8% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across support activities for agriculture and forestry, crop production, and private households creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.