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Globe/United States/Missouri/St. Francois County

St. Francois County

Lead Belt / Mineral Area (East-Central Missouri), Missouri · 67K people · $2.5B GDP

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Timeline
2026Present
NOW
EVENT HORIZON
2020202620302035204020452050
Lead Belt / Mineral Area (East-Central Missouri)

Future Path

Pick a future path. Every number on this page updates with the impacts and the ranked actions for that path.

Disruption Profile

Baseline + Probable

High — Active disruption underway in key sectors

Moderate — Median household income $55K (-17.1% vs state median) -- significantly below state average, limiting consumer spending and tax base.

Moderate — Building pressure in key sectors

Moderate — Building pressure in key sectors

Moderate — Moderate exposure across select industries

Low — Moderate exposure across select industries

Low — AI Exposure Index: 28/100 -- lower vulnerability to AI-driven workforce disruption.

Minimal — Limited disruption signal

Minimal — Limited disruption signal

St. Francois County vs Missouri Average

St. Francois County exceeds Missouri average on 5/9 dimensions. Highest divergence: Social Trust (-33)

Click a dimension label to explore

St. Francois Missouri US Avg

Projected impact · 2026

Stakes for St. Francois County

Probable cone · 1.00x

With 25K jobs in St. Francois County and AI exposure at 28/100, here is what the model projects through 2031 under the probable cone (default 5-year horizon — scrub the timeline to extend).

Model: at-risk = workforce × (AI exposure ÷ 100) × ((year − 2020) ÷ 10, capped 0-1) × cone multiplier. Each STEEPE-point improvement preserves ~1% of at-risk jobs. The same formula runs backwards (retrodiction) and forwards (projection), so scrubbing pre-2026 shows what the model says was already exposed by that year.

See per-dimension breakdown

How 8 actions distribute across 5 dimensions, plus near-term vs medium-term lists.

If St. Francois County implements all 8 recommended actions, the model projects these dimensional improvements.

Education Value
35+15 pts
Close the Skills Gap with AI-Ready Credentials /Sector-Aligned K-12 + Community College Pipeline /Registered Apprenticeship Expansion: Education & Health Services
Economic Disruption
52+8 pts
Reduce Education & Health Services Concentration Risk
AI > AGI > ASI
24+7 pts
Anchor Employer AI Co-Investment Compact /Universal Broadband for AI Economy Participation
Social Trust
40+4 pts
Pre-Positioned Displaced Worker Rapid Response
Ecological Stress
68+4 pts
Climate Resilience Infrastructure Investment
Near-term (1-3 yr)+32 pts

6 actions within local control

  • - Reduce Education & Health Services Concentration Risk
  • - Close the Skills Gap with AI-Ready Credentials
  • - Sector-Aligned K-12 + Community College Pipeline
  • - Anchor Employer AI Co-Investment Compact
  • - Registered Apprenticeship Expansion: Education & Health Services
  • - Pre-Positioned Displaced Worker Rapid Response
Medium-term (3-7 yr)+6 pts

2 actions requiring partnerships or advocacy

  • - Universal Broadband for AI Economy Participation
  • - Climate Resilience Infrastructure Investment

Action Plan

Probable path

Top recommendations for St. Francois County, ranked by estimated impact. 8 total · +38 pts combined.

Who Can Act

Of 8 recommended actions for St. Francois County, 7 are within direct control. Tap a sphere to see the actions and what each one does.

Acting on the 7 local levers alone (+36 STEEPE pts) is the fastest path to shifting the probable→preferred future cone for this county.

Top Employers — St. Francois County

The 8 largest employers shaping the local labor market. Tap any row for the public-data profile and AI-exposure assessment.

Economic Development Authority

St. Francois County Economic Development -- Mineral Area Region

Lead Belt Economic Diversification (healthcare + treatment + critical-minerals revival)

Website

Target Sectors

Healthcare & Behavioral Health (Parkland Mercy + residential treatment cluster)Critical-Minerals Recycling (lead-acid + zinc for grid + EV storage)Advanced Manufacturing (tooling, metal fab, St. Louis OEM supply chain)Workforce Training (Mineral Area College pipeline into nursing, welding, industrial tech)

Active Programs

  • +Mineral Area College workforce grants (nursing, allied health, welding)
  • +Missouri Department of Economic Development rural workforce funds
  • +EPA Big River / Lead Belt remediation (long-tail Superfund work)
  • +USDA Rural Development infrastructure + broadband grants

Recent Wins

Parkland Health Center expansion (Mercy Health)
2024
Walmart Distribution Center continued footprint (Farmington)
2025

Supporting detail

Open any section to dig into the underlying data.

Layoff history (WARN)

Federal layoff filings on the timeline

WARN Act Notices (2020-2026)

Notices

0

Workers

0

Layoff Rate

0%

of total employment

2025

0

Workers Affected by Year

0
2020
0
2021
0
2022
0
2023
0
2024
0
2025
0
2026

Recent Notices

Source: Missouri MWD WARN. Federal WARN Act: 60-day notice for mass layoffs (50+ workers) at employers with 100+ employees.

Disruption scenarios

Exponential impact paths driven by the timeline

Exponential Impact Scenarios

Cross-signal alerts

When multiple risk signals converge on this county

Convergence Alerts

highClimate-Economic Nexusstrength 65%
Ecological 68/55Economic 63/50

Ecological stress amplifies economic disruption through insurance costs, infrastructure damage, supply chain disruptions, and forced migration patterns.

Precedent: Hurricane Katrina (2005), Texas winter storm (2021): climate events created multi-year economic disruption in affected regions.

St. Francois County: 2 dimensions converging above thresholds simultaneously.

Full economic profile

Demographics, employment, sectors, incentives

EVI: transitionalBASELINENon-Metro (RUCC 4)

Housing & Infrastructure

Median Home Value

$154K

Homeownership

71.8%

Median Rent

$745

Broadband Access

81.4%

Avg Commute

22.4 min

Labor Force Part.

54.2%

Affordable by Missouri and national standards. Stable single-family stock concentrated in Farmington and Park Hills, with some weaker inventory in former mining towns (Flat River area). Modest pull from St. Louis-area retirees and treatment-industry staff.

Employment by Sector

Education & Health Services25.8%
Trade, Transportation & Utilities19.4%
Government12.1%
Leisure & Hospitality9.6%
Manufacturing7.8%

Population & Talent

Population

67K

Change Since 2020

+0.2%

Median Age

39.5

Population effectively flat since the 2020 census. Modest in-migration from St. Louis-area retirees and treatment-industry staff offsets younger-worker outflow.

Post-extraction Lead Belt economy carried by healthcare (Parkland Mercy), a regional residential-treatment cluster, a Walmart Distribution Center, and Mineral Area College. Real wage growth is muted, population has been roughly stagnant for a decade, and the opioid caseload pressures both the labor force and the health system. Critical-minerals revival (lead/zinc recycling for batteries) and ongoing Big River remediation are the two largest contingent upside levers.

Sources

Census QuickFacts: St. Francois County, MOBLS Missouri Employment SummarySt. Francois County GovernmentMineral Area College

Grant matches

Federal funding aligned to county levers

Target industries

Sectors prioritized by the county strategy

Sectors aligned with the county’s diversification strategy and AI impact assessment.

1.Behavioral Health & Addiction Treatment

AI mixed

The Mineral Area / St. Francois corridor has become a regional hub for residential addiction treatment, with multiple facilities serving Missouri's rural opioid caseload. Missouri ranks among the worst US states for rural overdose deaths. The treatment industry is one of the few growing employment categories in the county and absorbs both clinical and entry-level support staff.

2.Healthcare (Parkland Health Center / Mercy)

AI tailwind

Parkland Health Center in Farmington, part of Mercy Health, is the dominant regional medical employer and serves as the referral anchor for the Lead Belt and surrounding rural counties. Mercy systemwide has been an early AI / Epic-integrated documentation adopter, which gives Parkland disproportionate exposure to both AI-driven productivity gains and AI-driven back-office consolidation.

Back to Missouri

County data: Census ACS, BLS, BEA. Disruption Profile scores 0-100 (higher = more disruption). Timeline adjusts projections.

3.Lead/Zinc Remediation + Critical-Minerals Revival

AI mixed

The county sits on the historic Lead Belt -- at one point the largest lead-producing region in the world. The Doe Run Company's regional operations and the closure of the Herculaneum smelter (2013) left a long remediation tail (Big River sediment, Superfund-listed sites). A critical-minerals revival -- lead-acid + lithium recycling for EV batteries, zinc for grid-scale storage -- could partially re-monetize the region's mineral infrastructure.

4.Manufacturing (tooling, metal fabrication)

AI mixed

A modest base of tooling, metal-fab, and small-shop manufacturing serves the St. Louis OEM supply chain via the US-67 / I-55 corridor. Most shops are family-owned and operate with limited automation, leaving meaningful headroom for AI-assisted CAM, generative design, and predictive-maintenance tooling.

5.Workforce Training (Mineral Area College)

AI tailwind

Mineral Area College in Park Hills is the workforce anchor for the Lead Belt region, offering nursing, allied health, welding, industrial-tech, and behavioral-health support programs. It is the single most important pipeline for the county's healthcare and treatment industries and is positioned to absorb federal rural-workforce funding if directed at the opioid-recovery economy.

Best-case opportunities

What this county wins in the preferred future

Sources

Government, academic, and live data feeds

Census QuickFacts: St. Francois County, MOBLS Missouri Employment SummarySt. Francois County GovernmentMineral Area CollegeMercy HealthDoe Run Company