Blaine County, Montana

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Elevated poverty: At 18.3%, 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 11.8 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Retail Trade employs 192 workers (43.5% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $26,889.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $227M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Administrative and Support and Waste Management averages $62,762 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $15,144, a 4.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 17.42x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 5 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 2.4x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Elevated vacancy: 19.2% 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 (~$1,620/mo).

• Short commutes: 15.4-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 7,525 annual credentials.

Blaine County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 17.42x concentration and 40 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The interconnected base across animal production and aquaculture, food and beverage retailers, and building material and garden supply retailers creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.