Florence County, South Carolina

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Elevated poverty: At 18.7%, 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 11.3 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest sector: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 9,717 workers (20.9% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $61,911.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $10B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Finance and Insurance averages $93,316 while Accommodation and Food Services averages $22,108, a 4.2x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Forestry and Logging concentrates at 5.37x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 9 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, suggesting an interconnected industrial base rather than reliance on a single employer or sector.
• Attraction whitespace: 7 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 3.1x sits near the ~4.1x national average; affordability is neither a clear advantage nor a recruitment friction.
• Elevated vacancy: 14.9% 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 (~$1,458/mo).

• Talent pipeline: 6 regional institutions feed the workforce; the top three combined produce 20,095 annual credentials.

Florence County shows strong potential for forestry and logging attraction, with a 5.37x concentration and 110 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

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