The North Carolina Department of Commerce’s Labor and Economic Analysis Division (LEAD) has developed a new County Economic Vitality Index to measure and compare the economic outcomes of the state’s 100 counties over a 15-year period. The index is based on four factors: median household income, average wage, unemployment rate, and educational attainment. These metrics are compared against national benchmarks and averaged into a composite score. A score above 100 indicates performance better than the U.S. average; below 100 indicates underperformance.
In 2024, North Carolina’s statewide index score reached 98.4, which is 1.6% lower than the national average but represents the highest level for the state since at least 2010.
According to the index, high-scoring counties are mostly located in or near major metropolitan areas such as the Triangle, Charlotte, and Virginia Beach metros. In total, eleven counties outperformed the national average in 2024. Seven additional counties—Moore, Cabarrus, Lincoln, Henderson, Davie, Franklin, and Pender—are nearing parity with U.S. performance.
Since 2010, economic improvement has been widespread across North Carolina: ninety counties have strengthened faster than the nation as a whole during this period.
The index uses a bubble chart to show each county’s current performance versus its long-term trend from 2010 to 2024. Bubbles represent population change: blue indicates growth and gray indicates decline; larger bubbles correspond to larger changes in population.
Counties are grouped into four categories based on their position on this chart:
– Thriving: Outperforming the U.S. and improving
– Waning: Outperforming but declining
– Gaining: Underperforming but improving
– Struggling: Underperforming and declining
Of the top-performing counties (index scores above .915), twenty-eight out of twenty-nine experienced population growth from 2010 to 2024. Conversely, all thirty lowest-scoring counties (scores below .825) saw population declines over that period.
Economic conditions remain uneven across regions. Suburban areas and rural western North Carolina are improving rapidly, while some mid-sized metro areas—such as Fayetteville, Triad cities (Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point), Goldsboro, Rocky Mount, and Greenville—are either just keeping pace with or falling behind national trends.
The index also tracks year-over-year changes; it identified that eight western counties experienced significant declines between 2023 and 2024 following Hurricane Helene’s impact on local economies.
Analysis shows that lower unemployment rates and higher high school graduation rates have driven improvements for most counties. However, persistent gaps in wages and household incomes continue to weigh down performance in many rural and smaller metropolitan communities.
“Taken together, these findings suggest that North Carolina’s economic improvement has been broad but uneven,” according to LEAD analysts. “Much of the improvement across counties has been driven by tightening labor market and increasing high school graduation. At the same time, persistent gaps in wages and household income continue to constrain performance in many rural and smaller metro counties. Understanding both the sources of recent gains and the barriers to further progress will be essential for shaping policies that sustain growth and expand economic opportunity statewide.”
Future articles will examine these trends more closely.
