Two comparisons, both shown. The national basis ranks Brunswick County against every scored U.S. county — its percentile band above is a relative national standing, not a condition. The in-state basis ranks it against North Carolina's other counties (rank and percentile only — bands aren't meaningful within a single state). A county can stand out in its own state while sitting mid-pack nationally. Neither is a forecast.
Brunswick County scores 58.8 on the national CAERI basis — 649th of 3,142 scored U.S. counties, placing it in the 75th–90th band nationally by percentile, with a high-confidence rating. Within North Carolina it ranks 16th of 100 counties (84th in-state percentile). The score summarizes how concentrated local employment is in AI-exposed occupations against the economy's measured capacity to adapt; these are relative-standing bands, not a projection of local job change.
Direct occupational exposure stands at the 72nd national percentile. The largest concentrations of locally estimated employment in high-exposure occupations are office clerks, general, customer service representatives, elementary school teachers, except special education. The share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 is 7% — below the state median of 8%; research on AI-era payrolls finds early-career roles in exposed work are where hiring patterns shift first, so this share indicates how soon exposure could be felt, not how large it is.
The share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers 55 and over is 32% (above the state median) — a higher share historically means slower workforce adjustment when industries restructure. Fiscal sensitivity ranks at the 51st percentile among North Carolina's counties. Census of Governments data shows state aid at 26% of this county's general revenue (well below the state median), and wage- and consumption-sensitive streams (sales, income, and similar own-source taxes, where levied) at 18% of own-source revenue. Property taxes, which respond to economic change more slowly, are counted separately and are not part of that sensitive share. How this state's aid formulas and tax structure carry economic change into local budgets is covered in the state-specific fiscal analysis available to subscribers. All county occupation figures on this page are model-based ESTIMATES with the confidence rating shown above.
Across all 214 high-exposure occupations (top quartile of ensemble exposure) with estimated local employment, Brunswick County has an estimated 10,150 jobs — 25.6% of county employment — carrying an estimated $606M annual wage bill in high-exposure work. The five largest:
| Occupation | Est. local employment* | Exposure (0–1) | Median wage (area) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Office Clerks, General | 653 | 0.44 | $38,240 |
| Customer Service Representatives | 647 | 0.42 | $36,860 |
| Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education | 482 | 0.43 | $48,210 |
| Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks | 457 | 0.51 | $46,340 |
| Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants | 448 | 0.57 | $38,220 |
| Brunswick County | North Carolina median | |
|---|---|---|
| Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 (entry rung) | 7.0% | 8.0% |
| Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers 55+ (adjustment friction) | 32.2% | 29.2% |
The county number above averages over every community in it. City- and place-level exposure profiles, employer-mix detail, trend monitoring, and peer benchmarking are part of the CAERI subscription for local governments and regional organizations.
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StrataHelm. (2026). Brunswick County, North Carolina — Community AI Exposure & Resilience Index (CAERI v0.3.1) [Data set]. Retrieved August 4, 2026, from https://stratahelm.com/counties/north-carolina/brunswick/
“Brunswick County, North Carolina — CAERI.” StrataHelm, 2026, stratahelm.com/counties/north-carolina/brunswick/. Accessed 4 August 2026.
StrataHelm. “Brunswick County, North Carolina — Community AI Exposure and Resilience Index (v0.3.1).” 2026. https://stratahelm.com/counties/north-carolina/brunswick/
Machine-readable: this county's JSON · national dataset download and data dictionary on the methodology page.
Alamance Co., NC (in state)Hoke Co., NC (in state)Onslow Co., NC (in state)Newton Co., GA (similar score)Henry Co., AL (similar score)Martin Co., FL (similar score)
Links point to the economically nearest counties (in-state, and similar national score). County-level geographic adjacency is not part of the public reference data, so proximity here is by rank, not by shared border.
| Layer | Sources (vintage) |
|---|---|
| Employment & occupation structure | cbp_nc_county_naics4: Census CBP 2023 API (NAICS2017 classification; PAYANN in $1,000s; noise infusion G/H/J bands, D = withheld -> NaN); county_soc_estimates.meta_nc.json; exposure_scores: 2026-07-04; matrix_staffing_patterns: 2024-34 National Employment Matrix (base year 2024) |
| AI-exposure research base | Anthropic Economic Index; Felten, Raj & Seamans (AIOE); Eloundou et al. — combined as a weighted ensemble with cross-source disagreement feeding the confidence rating |
| Capacity, buffer & fiscal | govfin_nc_county_revenue_mix: 2022 Census of Governments, Survey of Government Finances; lodes_nc_county_flows: LEHD LODES8 OD 2023, JT00/S000; sources: nc_main, nc_aux, ga_aux, sc_aux, tn_aux, va_aux; qwi_nc_county_naics3_age: Census QWI (qwi/sa), quarters ['2024-Q4', '2025-Q1', '2025-Q2', '2025-Q3'], sex=0, ownercode=A05 (private), 96 NAICS-3 + '00' all-industry |
| Methodology | CAERI v0.3.1 · public methodology · scores generated 2026-07-12 · page generated 2026-08-04 |
| License | Free to reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license: reuse or redistribute with attribution to “StrataHelm CAERI” and a link back to this page. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |