Saguache 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 17.8%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Aging population: Median age of 50 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting employs 314 workers (41.5% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $45,356.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $220M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services averages $129,801 while Educational Services averages $26,397, a 4.9x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 38.30x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 7 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 4.2x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 76.9% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 12.9% 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: 3 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,252/mo).

• Succession risk is real: 32.2% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Short commutes: 17.5-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.

Saguache County shows strong potential for crop production attraction, with a 38.30x concentration and 217 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 32.2% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across crop production, accommodation, and religious, grantmaking, civic, professional orgs creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.