Lee County, North Carolina

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Elevated poverty: At 16.5%, 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 14.4 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Manufacturing employs 8,466 workers (39.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $82,966.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $4.3B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $88,292 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $21,515, a 4.1x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Chemical Manufacturing concentrates at 13.77x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• 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: 8 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 3.7x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Affordable rent tiers: 4 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom tiers sit below the 30%-of-median-income affordability threshold (~$1,635/mo).

• 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 28,942 annual credentials.

Lee County shows strong potential for chemical manufacturing attraction, with a 13.77x concentration and 2,159 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally. Near-term succession risk is elevated, with 22.3% of the working-age population within 10 years of retirement age.

The interconnected base across chemical manufacturing, machinery manufacturing, and forestry and logging creates supply-chain attraction leverage rather than single-employer risk, a structural advantage for industrial recruitment.