Beltrami County, Minnesota

• Elevated poverty: At 16.1%, the rate is in economically distressed territory and supports federal funding narratives (CDFI, NMTC, EDA).
• Young population: Median age of 35 is materially below the U.S. norm, a workforce pipeline asset.

• Largest sector: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 4,368 workers (31.7% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $67,576.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.5B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Construction averages $82,946 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,391, a 3.9x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 4.94x the national norm, strong concentration that anchors the local economy and supports supply-chain attraction strategy.
• Cluster depth: 10 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 6 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• In line with national: Home value to income ratio of 3.4x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• High home ownership: 70.1% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 16.4% 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.
• Broadly affordable rents: All 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,724/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Short commutes: 21.0-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 41,393 annual credentials.

Beltrami County shows meaningful potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 4.94x concentration and 30 jobs in this sub-sector.

The interconnected base across forestry and logging, wood product manufacturing, and heavy and civil engineering construction creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.