New labor market page shows why NC’s economy isn’t working for everyone

Every day, North Carolinians contribute their collective labor to keep our communities functioning and thriving. At the NC Budget & Tax Center, we believe that everyone — no matter what they look like or where they are born — should be able to find fulfilling work that allows them to meet their basic needs and have the opportunity to thrive.

To understand whether our economy and political systems are delivering on that promise — and where they are falling short — we need to look at labor market data.

That’s why, for the 2025 Labor Day weekend, the NC Budget & Tax Center is releasing our updated labor market hub, “Work, Wages, and Well-Being: Understanding North Carolina’s Labor Market.”

The data hub will be updated at least twice a month with state and local labor market data releases.

The new page covers the usual top line figures, like the unemployment rate, but it also dives into the nuances of people’s ability to find work and make ends meet. The page covers national, state, and local data because although national and state aggregates are important, they can mask dramatic differences on the ground. It’s only by diving into the details at all levels that we can fully understand how our economy is doing, make sound policy choices, as well as other important decisions.

Key findings from Work, Wages, and Well-Being reveal:

• Underemployment and unemployment
• Fewer jobs relative to the working age population
• Real wages failing to keep up with productivity growth
• Households struggling to make ends meet
• Pernicious and persistent racial, ethnic, and gender wage gaps
• Precarity for disaster survivors and federal government employees

In short, it reveals an economy that is not working for everyday North Carolinians like you and me.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Yet we can only begin to address these issues through reliable data that is understandable to the people and policymakers. Our labor market page aims to do just this, but we rely on the data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With the firing of the head of the Bureau by the Trump administration because of their reporting on the state of the labor market, now more than ever it’s important that we continue to track economic outcomes and hold policymakers and politicians accountable for building an economy that truly works for all of us.