Dukes County, Massachusetts

• Income premium: Households earn well above the national median, supporting strong retail and housing markets.
• Talent advantage: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment exceeds the national average by 16.2 pts, supports knowledge-economy and tech attraction.
• Aging population: Median age of 51 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Retail Trade employs 1,302 workers (50% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $57,294.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.1B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Health Care and Social Assistance averages $97,714 while Educational Services averages $48,189, a 2.0x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Clothing, Clothing Accessories, Shoe, and Jewelry Retailers concentrates at 4.71x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 8 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.

• Stretched market: Home value to income ratio of 9.3x is well above the ~4.1x national average; attainable workforce housing may be a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 82.1% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 57.4% 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: 4 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$3,145/mo).

• Succession risk is real: 30.5% 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 31,353 annual credentials.

Dukes County shows meaningful potential for clothing, clothing accessories, shoe, and jewelry retailers attraction, with a 4.71x concentration and 314 jobs in this sub-sector. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 30.5% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across clothing, clothing accessories, shoe, and jewelry retailers, amusement, gambling, and recreation industries, and crop production creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.