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Globe/United States/Oklahoma/Payne County

Payne County

North-Central Oklahoma / Stillwater / Cushing Oil Hub, Oklahoma · 82K people · $4.0B GDP

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Timeline
2026Present
NOW
EVENT HORIZON
2020202620302035204020452050
North-Central Oklahoma / Stillwater / Cushing Oil Hub

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

High — Median household income $52K (-15.6% 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

Moderate — Moderate exposure across select industries

Low — AI Exposure Index: 30/100 -- lower vulnerability to AI-driven workforce disruption.

Low — Moderate exposure across select industries

Minimal — Limited disruption signal

Payne County vs Oklahoma Average

Payne County exceeds Oklahoma average on 7/9 dimensions. Highest divergence: Social Trust (-24)

Click a dimension label to explore

Payne Oklahoma US Avg

Projected impact · 2026

Stakes for Payne County

Probable cone · 1.00x

With 42K jobs in Payne County and AI exposure at 30/100, 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 9 actions distribute across 5 dimensions, plus near-term vs medium-term lists.

If Payne County implements all 9 recommended actions, the model projects these dimensional improvements.

Education Value
64+14 pts
Pre-emptive Reskilling Pipeline: Back-office administrative work at OSU /Sector-Aligned K-12 + Community College Pipeline /Registered Apprenticeship Expansion: Healthcare (Stillwater Medical + clinics)
Social Trust
58+9 pts
Targeted Poverty Reduction in Highest-Need Areas /Pre-Positioned Displaced Worker Rapid Response
Economic Disruption
64+8 pts
Reduce Education (OSU + K-12) Concentration Risk
AI > AGI > ASI
30+6 pts
Anchor Employer AI Co-Investment Compact /Universal Broadband for AI Economy Participation
Ecological Stress
72+4 pts
Climate Resilience Infrastructure Investment
Near-term (1-3 yr)+36 pts

7 actions within local control

  • - Reduce Education (OSU + K-12) Concentration Risk
  • - Targeted Poverty Reduction in Highest-Need Areas
  • - Pre-emptive Reskilling Pipeline: Back-office administrative work at OSU
  • - Sector-Aligned K-12 + Community College Pipeline
  • - Anchor Employer AI Co-Investment Compact
  • - Registered Apprenticeship Expansion: Healthcare (Stillwater Medical + clinics)
  • - Pre-Positioned Displaced Worker Rapid Response
Medium-term (3-7 yr)+5 pts

2 actions requiring partnerships or advocacy

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

Action Plan

Probable path

Top recommendations for Payne County, ranked by estimated impact. 9 total · +41 pts combined.

Who Can Act

Of 9 recommended actions for Payne County, 8 are within direct control. Tap a sphere to see the actions and what each one does.

Acting on the 8 local levers alone (+40 STEEPE pts) is the fastest path to shifting the probable→preferred future cone for this county.

Top Employers — Payne County

The 10 largest employers shaping the local labor market. Tap any row for the public-data profile and AI-exposure assessment.

Economic Development Authority

Stillwater Chamber of Commerce + Stillwater Economic Development

Stillwater + Payne County Economic Development Strategy

Website

Target Sectors

Higher Education & University-Linked R&D (OSU research commercialization)Healthcare (Stillwater Medical Center expansion + allied-health pipeline)Energy Services & Cushing Hub Logistics (pipeline, storage, field services)Agribusiness (OSU ag-extension + cattle, wheat, ranchland productivity)

Active Programs

  • +Oklahoma Department of Commerce rural-county development partnerships
  • +OSU Riata Center for Entrepreneurship + technology-commercialization initiatives
  • +Meridian Technology Center workforce training programs
  • +Cushing pipeline-hub strategic infrastructure programs

Recent Wins

OSU New Frontiers Agricultural Hall research facility
$200M+2024
Cushing crude-oil storage capacity modernization (operator capital)
$150M+2024

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: Oklahoma OESC 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 93%
Ecological 72/55Economic 75/50

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.

Payne County: 2 dimensions converging above thresholds simultaneously.

Full economic profile

Demographics, employment, sectors, incentives

EVI: stableBASELINENon-Metro (RUCC 4)

Housing & Infrastructure

Median Home Value

$184K

Homeownership

49.2%

Median Rent

$920

Broadband Access

88.2%

Avg Commute

18.2 min

Labor Force Part.

65.8%

Stillwater's housing market is bifurcated: a heavy rental market driven by OSU student demand (low owner-occupancy in core-Stillwater census tracts), surrounded by owner-occupied single-family neighborhoods and rural ranchland. Off-campus student housing is a significant share of new construction. Cushing housing is older, oil-field-tied, and affordable.

Employment by Sector

Education (OSU + K-12)28.4%
Healthcare (Stillwater Medical + clinics)14.6%
Trade, Transportation & Utilities (incl. Cushing oil-hub logistics)14.2%
Leisure & Hospitality (college-town service economy)11.8%
Mining & Oil & Gas Services6.2%

Population & Talent

Population

82K

Change Since 2020

+1.2%

Median Age

27.8

Net in-migration driven by OSU student inflows (transient but counted in ACS) plus modest faculty, healthcare, and oil-field-service household additions. Outmigration of recent OSU graduates to Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Dallas-Fort Worth is real but offset by the steady incoming undergraduate class each year.

Payne County's economy is anchored almost entirely by Oklahoma State University in Stillwater -- a flagship land-grant research university with ~25,000 students and ~6,000 faculty and staff. OSU is the largest employer, largest landholder, and the demographic engine of the county. Stillwater Medical Center anchors regional healthcare. The Cushing oil-storage hub in southern Payne County is the price-settlement delivery point for WTI crude futures and one of the largest commercial oil-storage hubs in the world, threading pipeline, tank-farm, and field-service employment through the county. The surrounding agricultural economy is cattle and wheat. The combination of a flagship university anchor, a strategic oil-hub footprint, and an OSU-driven healthcare and service ecosystem makes Payne County one of the most stable non-metro counties in Oklahoma, despite being embedded in a broader conservative rural region.

Sources

Census QuickFacts: Payne County, OKBLS Oklahoma Employment SummaryPayne County, Oklahoma (government)Oklahoma State University

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.Higher Education & Research (Oklahoma State University)

AI tailwind

Oklahoma State University is a flagship land-grant research university with ~25,000 students and ~6,000 faculty and staff in Stillwater. OSU dominates the county economy: it is the largest employer, the largest landholder, and the demographic engine. Strong programs in engineering, agriculture, animal science, geology, and aerospace. OSU's College of Engineering and Division of Agricultural Sciences anchor a meaningful research base for north-central Oklahoma.

2.Healthcare (Stillwater Medical Center)

AI tailwind

Stillwater Medical Center is the regional hospital anchor for north-central Oklahoma, serving Payne and surrounding counties. It absorbs caseload from a college-student population, a regional rural ranch-and-farm population, and an aging baby-boomer demographic. Telemedicine and AI-triage tools have outsized impact in rural-coverage gaps stretching west and north of Stillwater.

Back to Oklahoma

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

3.Oil & Gas Services (Cushing crude hub, field services, frac sand)

AI mixed

Cushing, in southern Payne County, is the price-settlement delivery point for WTI crude oil futures and one of the largest commercial oil-storage hubs in the world. Tank farms, pipeline interconnects, and a long supply-chain footprint of field-service companies thread through the county. The footprint is durable but cyclical, exposed to WTI price swings and the longer-term energy-transition trajectory.

4.Agriculture (cattle, wheat, ranchland)

AI mixed

North-central Oklahoma agriculture is dominated by cattle (cow-calf operations, feedlots) and wheat, with OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources providing extension services, research, and a steady graduate-program pipeline. Ranchland is the underlying landscape outside Stillwater's college-town core. Land prices and water availability are the binding long-run constraints.

5.College-Town Service Economy

AI headwind

Stillwater's economy outside OSU itself is shaped by the university: retail, food service, off-campus housing, hospitality, and entertainment scale with the student and football-game-day population. The football-economy spike (Boone Pickens Stadium home games) is a meaningful seasonal pattern. Routine service-sector roles are exposed to automation and ordering-app substitution.

Best-case opportunities

What this county wins in the preferred future

Sources

Government, academic, and live data feeds

Census QuickFacts: Payne County, OKBLS Oklahoma Employment SummaryPayne County, Oklahoma (government)Oklahoma State UniversityStillwater Medical CenterEIA Cushing Oklahoma crude oil stocks