Two comparisons, both shown. The national basis ranks Thurston 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 Washington'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.
Thurston County scores 61.6 on the national CAERI basis — 429th of 3,142 scored U.S. counties, placing it in the 75th–90th band nationally by percentile, with a medium-confidence rating. Within Washington it ranks 5th of 39 counties (88th 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 92nd national percentile. The largest concentrations of locally estimated employment in high-exposure occupations are secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive, office clerks, general, management analysts. 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 27% (above the state median) — a higher share historically means slower workforce adjustment when industries restructure. Fiscal sensitivity ranks at the 66th percentile among Washington's counties. Census of Governments data shows state aid at 14% 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 29% 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 201 high-exposure occupations (top quartile of ensemble exposure) with estimated local employment, Thurston County has an estimated 41,527 jobs — 31.9% of county employment — carrying an estimated $3B annual wage bill in high-exposure work. The five largest:
| Occupation | Est. local employment* | Exposure (0–1) | Median wage (area) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive | 2,356 | 0.50 | $52,610 |
| Office Clerks, General | 2,237 | 0.44 | $45,940 |
| Management Analysts | 2,067 | 0.46 | $86,200 |
| Customer Service Representatives | 1,751 | 0.42 | $47,530 |
| Business Operations Specialists, All Other | 1,355 | 0.47 | $75,460 |
| Thurston County | Washington median | |
|---|---|---|
| Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 (entry rung) | 7.2% | 8.1% |
| Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers 55+ (adjustment friction) | 26.6% | 25.7% |
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). Thurston County, Washington — Community AI Exposure & Resilience Index (CAERI v0.3.1) [Data set]. Retrieved August 4, 2026, from https://stratahelm.com/counties/washington/thurston/
“Thurston County, Washington — CAERI.” StrataHelm, 2026, stratahelm.com/counties/washington/thurston/. Accessed 4 August 2026.
StrataHelm. “Thurston County, Washington — Community AI Exposure and Resilience Index (v0.3.1).” 2026. https://stratahelm.com/counties/washington/thurston/
Machine-readable: this county's JSON · national dataset download and data dictionary on the methodology page.
Benton Co., WA (in state)Kitsap Co., WA (in state)Adams Co., WA (in state)Blanco Co., TX (similar score)Fluvanna Co., VA (similar score)Whitfield Co., GA (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_wa_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_wa.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_wa_county_revenue_mix: 2022 Census of Governments, Survey of Government Finances; lodes_wa_county_flows: LEHD LODES8 OD 2023, JT00/S000; sources: wa_main, wa_aux, id_aux, or_aux; qwi_wa_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/ |