Mills County, Iowa

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Aging population: Median age of 42 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Retail Trade employs 389 workers (25.8% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $31,929.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $645M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Management of Companies and Enterprises averages $137,906 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $11,750, a 11.7x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Gasoline Stations and Fuel Dealers concentrates at 6.12x 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.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.6x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 83.5% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 12.1% 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 (~$2,269/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Succession risk is real: 24.9% 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 21,768 annual credentials.

Mills County shows strong potential for gasoline stations and fuel dealers attraction, with a 6.12x concentration and 129 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 24.9% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across gasoline stations and fuel dealers, waste management and remediation services, and nursing and residential care facilities creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.