Franklin County, Nebraska

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 14.4 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.
• Aging population: Median age of 49 is materially above the U.S. norm; succession planning and senior-services demand are real factors.

• Largest sector: Retail Trade employs 100 workers (43.1% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $26,548.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $125M (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $53,195 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $14,458, a 3.7x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Crop Production concentrates at 20.29x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 3 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 1.6x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• High home ownership: 83.2% owner-occupied; rental supply may be tight for incoming workers.
• Elevated vacancy: 15.5% 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 (~$1,505/mo), a clear cost-of-living advantage for workforce attraction.

• Succession risk is real: 30.7% of working-age residents are 55-64. Plan for retirements over the next decade and pair attraction strategy with talent retention.
• Low participation: 59.6% labor force participation suggests untapped capacity; workforce development programs may unlock supply.
• Short commutes: 19.2-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 12,952 annual credentials.

Franklin County shows strong potential for crop production attraction, with a 20.29x concentration and 54 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 30.7% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across crop production, gasoline stations and fuel dealers, and repair and maintenance creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.