Macon County is slightly more economically distressed in comparison with the other North Carolina counties, according to a state-mandated yearly ranking.
The North Carolina Department of Commerce’s annual County Distress Ranking has Macon as the 79th most distressed county out of the state’s 100 counties for 2023. This is down one spot from 2022’s ranking of 80th.
Macon scored marginally better than last year, going from 294 to 296 out of a possible 400 points (more points means less distressed).
“For Macon County to rank 79th out of 100 in the Economic Distress Rank, it indicates that Macon County has enjoyed some strong leadership at the local level and there are some really positive things happening from an economic standpoint,” stated Russ Harris, executive director of the Southwestern North Carolina Planning and Economic Development Commission.
The state-mandated rankings are broken up into three tiers, with Tier One being the 40 most distressed counties. Tier Two, where Macon County falls, is the 41st-80th most distressed and the 81st-100th most distressed counties are in Tier Three.
Macon County moved from Tier Three to Tier Two in 2022 but is still a long way from Tier One.
“It’s also important to note that the rankings are relative so if nothing changed in Macon County over the next year, but a Tier Three county experienced an event that led to higher unemployment or population loss, Macon County could find itself as a Tier Three next year,” Harris noted.
While being near Tier Three theoretically means that the quality of life for a Macon County citizen is better than in most North Carolina counties, it also means Macon is less likely to receive state economic development grants.
“The main consequence for Macon County of remaining in Tier Two is that the tier system is used to determine eligibility for some state programs with some programs offering either more benefits or requiring a lower amount of matching funds from the local government for more distressed counties,” Harris explained. “So, there could be programs that Macon County isn’t eligible for and or some programs where they are eligible for less of a benefit than a more distressed county.”
How to calculate county distress
The rankings are the sum of a formula that weighs four economic detectors equally: average unemployment rate, median household income, percentage growth of population and adjusted property tax base per capita.
According to the numbers, Macon County’s adjusted property tax base per capita is $224,179, one of the highest averages in the state (7th highest), up from $218,595 the year before. Harris said that this number only includes private property, so the 46% of Macon County that’s national forest is not calculated into the county distress formula.
Population growth in Macon County was 3.25%, down slightly from 3.85% last year, but still beating the state average of 2.76%.
“Adding population is generally seen as a positive sign,” Harris said of how the population numbers affect the rankings. “Communities that are losing population find themselves in a situation where they may have fewer payers for a service than was anticipated which means the rates for those remaining in the community will begin to climb. If everyone in a community pays about $100 for water and sewer and you lose 10% of that population, the remaining population will find themselves paying approximately 10% more.”
Median household income is $51,973, roughly in the middle of all 100 counties at 54th most distressed (below the state average of $59,616). That number is an improvement from $46,279 the year before.
Unemployment dropped to 3.31% from 4.48% the year before. Despite this positive outcome, Macon dropped 13 counties statewide due to large scale statewide unemployment drop. Still, Macon County remains below the state average of 3.69%.
Swain County shifted from Tier One to Tier Two mainly due to population growth. Graham and Cherokee counties remain in Tier One, mostly due to low median household income, plus a high unemployment rate in Graham. Jackson County is ranked as a Tier Two county.