South By North Strategies, Ltd.

From the 2012 edition of The State of Working North Carolina, published by the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center …

The outlook for workers worsened during the Great Recession and its aftermath. North Carolina ranked 6^th in the nation for most jobs lost since the start of the Great Recession, and the unemployment rate is still nearly twice pre-recession levels. The lack of employment opportunities has increased economic hardship—North Carolina’s poverty rate reached 17.5 percent in 2010, the 12^th highest in the nation, and North Carolina had the nation’s 12^th lowest median household income.
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These outcomes are a result of the economic conditions in North Carolina prior to the Great Recession, the severity of the recession’s impact on the state, and policymakers’ decisions to cut state investments in the tools that could rebuild the economy—an educated workforce, sound infrastructure and healthy communities.