Ford County, Illinois

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 16.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Manufacturing employs 784 workers (29.1% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $58,936.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Management of Companies and Enterprises averages $92,881 while Information averages $25,982, a 3.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Food Manufacturing concentrates at 6.49x 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: 5 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.0x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 72.3% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Broadly affordable rents: All 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,561/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Succession risk is real: 24.3% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Talent pipeline: 6 regional institutions feed the workforce; the top three combined produce 37,237 annual credentials.

Ford County shows strong potential for food manufacturing attraction, with a 6.49x concentration and 409 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.3% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across food manufacturing, crop production, and nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.