North Carolina Economic Resilience Index

The North Carolina Economic Resilience Index (NCERI) evaluates counties' ability to withstand and recover from economic disruptions by combining multiple factors into a single score or ranking. It includes overall resilience scores and rankings as well as detailed scores for nine key components.

Indices like NCERI simplify complex data to guide decision-making. For example, tools such as the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) integrate diverse metrics to assess development and sustainability. Similarly, NCERI identifies strengths, vulnerabilities, and opportunities for improvement, serving as a valuable resource for tracking progress, benchmarking performance, allocating resources, and shaping policy.

Nine Key Components:

1. Business Community Health: Evaluates local business diversity, employment levels, and wages.
2. Local Government Fiscal Strength: Measures fiscal stability via debt service ratios and revenue sustainability.
3. Communication Infrastructure: Analyzes access to broadband and mobile connectivity for business continuity and emergency preparedness.
4. Housing and Transportation: Assesses housing affordability and transportation accessibility for workforce stability.
5. Healthcare: Evaluates healthcare availability and quality.
6. Community Cohesion: Examines social bonds and civic engagement metrics like voter participation and nonprofit density.
7. Socioeconomic Factors: Looks at income levels, poverty rates, and inequality.
8. Education: Assesses educational attainment and school performance.
9. Household Characteristics: Analyzes demographics such as single-parent households and age distribution.

Development and Methodology 

NCERI was created with support from the U.S. Economic Development Administration and built in partnership with faculty at East Carolina University with input from state agencies, academics, and nonprofit leaders.

It incorporates 59 indicators refined through statistical analysis and stakeholder input. Metrics are standardized using z-scores and converted to a 1-to-100 scale for interpretability. Category scores are averaged, and an overall score is calculated using weighted averages of the nine components.

Applications

• Identify Vulnerabilities: Pinpoints challenges like limited broadband or healthcare access for targeted action.
• Support Economic Development: Highlights regional strengths to attract investment and funding.
• Track Progress: Monitors improvements in resilience over time and evaluates the effectiveness of interventions.
• Foster Collaboration: Identifies shared challenges and strengths to encourage regional cooperation.
• Inform Policy and Strategy: Provides data-driven insights to guide long-term planning and policy development.

Complement to Existing Tools

NCERI complements the County Tier System by providing a broader assessment of resilience, incorporating factors beyond traditional economic metrics like unemployment and income. Additionally, it offers a means to track performance over time and evaluate how counties respond to economic challenges, making it a versatile tool for continuous improvement.

The dashboard is divided among resilience metrics and  geographic regions including either Regional Council of Government or County. 

1. Select a metric at the top of the dashboard.
2. Select Council of Government or County to choose how rankings are geographically displayed on the map.
3. Hover your mouse over any region for more details, such as name and numeric ranking.
4. Scroll down further to view each area ranked in order (bottom left), and detailed rankings across all categories (bottom right).
5. Click on a County or Council of Government anywhere on the dashboard to view its detailed rankings.

Click the question mark icon (?) at the top-right of the dashboard to learn more about how scores are calculated.