Staff report
With a median household income $16,742 lower than the state median household income, a poverty rate of 32.3 percent and unemployment at 14.6 percent, Scotland County is the poorest of North Carolina’s 100 counties.
So says a report detailed in a USAToday.com article published today. The article uses a breakdown by 24/7 Wall St. of data from 2009 to 2013. 24/7 Wall St., LLC is a Delaware corporation which runs a financial news and opinion company with content delivered over the Internet.
The unemployment rates were for 2013 only and were drawn from Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Other data was obtained through the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The report indicated that:
* A typical household in Scotland County earned an annual income of less than $30,000 over the five years through 2013, substantially lower than the state and national median household incomes;
* The average household median income in Scotland was $29,592, compared with $46,334 across North Carolina;
* The county’s job market is particularly weak, with an unemployment rate of 14.6 percent, nearly double the national rate in 2013; and
* Scotland residents had low college attainment rates — while nearly 29 percent of all Americans had at lat a bachelor’s degree during the five-year period, just over 14 percent of Scotland County residents had such a degree.
Rankings for the state’s remaining 99 counties were not immediately available.
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