Boone County, WV
Demographic and economic profile of Boone County, WV, sourced from the US Census Bureau (American Community Survey) via Data USA.
AI Overview
Boone County is a small, rural West Virginia county of 21,312 residents with an economic profile shaped by extractive industries, reflected in a labor force participation rate of just 44.4% and an unemployment rate of 8.8%, both signaling a constrained local labor market. The workforce skews older (median age 45.3) and has limited formal educational attainment, with only 11.9% holding a bachelor's degree or higher, though median worker earnings of $37,845 suggest trade and industrial occupations remain present. Housing costs are notably low—median home value of $90,300 and median gross rent of $823/month—but the county has shed 6.6% of its population over five years, and a poverty rate of 17.3% underscores ongoing structural economic stress.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 · generated Jul 6, 2026 · derived from cached Census, BEA & ACS data on this page
Population Growth (5-year)
-6.6% since 2018
Boone County lost population at this rate over the prior 5-year ACS5 window.
Demographics
Race & Ethnicity
- White Alone20,470 (97.4%)
- Two Races Excluding Some Other Race, & Three or More Races305 (1.5%)
- Some Other Race Alone87 (0.4%)
- Black or African American Alone86 (0.4%)
- Two Races Including Some Other Race37 (0.2%)
- Asian Alone36 (0.2%)
Top Languages Spoken at Home
- 1.Spanish115
- 2.Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese)25
- 3.Korean15
- 4.German or other West Germanic13
- 5.Other Indo-European6
Economy
Cost of Living Index
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Not yet cached
Top Industries
- 1.Educational Services, & Health Care & Social Assistance2,178
- 2.Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting, & Mining921
- 3.Retail Trade (Group)800
- 4.Transportation & Warehousing, & Utilities562
- 5.Construction (Group)510
Top Occupations
- 1.Management, Business, Science, & Arts Occupations2,331
- 2.Sales & Office Occupations1,633
- 3.Service Occupations1,317
- 4.Natural Resources, Construction, & Maintenance Occupations1,243
- 5.Production, Transportation, & Material Moving Occupations702
Specialized Industries (Location Quotient)
- 1.Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting, & Mining (LQ 6.51×)729
- 2.Transportation, Warehousing, & Utilities (LQ 1.33×)545
- 3.Public Administration (LQ 1.30×)432
- 4.Educational Services & Health Care (LQ 1.27×)2,092
- 5.Construction (LQ 1.12×)546
Housing
Education
Workforce
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Data: US Census Bureau American Community Survey, served via Data USA and the Census Bureau API. See each metric tile for the specific dataset.