Mapping CED Progress…and Struggle: The 2024 NC County Tier Rankings

<p>What is the NC Tier system?</p> <p style="text-align: left">Almost 40 years ago, the North Carolina Commission on Jobs and Economic Growth formally identified a pattern in the state’s economic growth.  There were clearly haves and have-nots — a divide between prospering urban areas and economically stagnating rural areas. Analysts referred to it as a “two-tiered economic system.”  In response, in 1986, the N.C. General Assembly developed a tax incentive program to promote economic development, with access to the incentives based on a county’s place (designation) in an ordered list reflecting the relative economic distress of all 100 NC counties.  The list was then broken into Tiers, or groups, showing the most distressed group of counties (Tier 1) to the least (Tier 3).</p> <p>In the years that followed, this Tier system faced challenges and underwent frequent changes to meet shifting economic circumstances, development and state priorities, ultimately settling on the three tier system we use today (see here for a 2015 state legislative report providing more details on its history and here for the relevant state statute outlining the current designation structure and process).</p> <p>What is the Tier system used for?</p> <p>Originally, the system was used to promote economic development through tax incentives for new or expanding businesses.  The tier system helped target those incentives to the most distressed areas of the state.  It is now used to help counties through a wide range of programs, from federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) to Job Development and Investment Grants (JDIG).  The Commerce Department has a limited list of current programs [...]</p>