Lawrence County, Illinois

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Elevated poverty: At 14.5%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 20.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Retail Trade employs 335 workers (45.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $30,889.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $661M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction averages $87,451 while Retail Trade averages $30,889, a 2.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Oil and Gas Extraction concentrates at 14.30x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 3 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 1.8x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 71.8% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 14.6% 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.
• Broadly affordable rents: All 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,383/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Low participation: 52.8% labor force participation suggests untapped capacity; workforce development programs may unlock supply.
• Short commutes: 20.8-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 37,237 annual credentials.

Lawrence County shows strong potential for oil and gas extraction attraction, with a 14.30x concentration and 43 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The interconnected base across oil and gas extraction, crop production, and creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.