Taylor County, Kentucky

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Elevated poverty: At 17.5%, 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 12.7 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Retail Trade employs 1,554 workers (29% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $34,516.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $1.2B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $77,255 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $13,425, a 5.8x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Sporting Goods, Hobby, Musical Instrument, Book, and Misc. Retailers concentrates at 2.08x the national norm.
• Cluster depth: 4 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 8 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.9x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Broadly affordable rents: All 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,511/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Succession risk is real: 22.3% 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 21,597 annual credentials.

Taylor County shows emerging potential for sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book, and misc. retailers attraction, with a 2.08x concentration and 229 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.3% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book, and misc. retailers, building material and garden supply retailers, and general merchandise retailers creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.