High Poverty Rates Hold Steady, Remain Resistant to Economic Recovery

September 2013

The sluggish and uneven economic recovery has yet to produce significant gains for low- and moderate-income North Carolinians, according to the latest poverty figures from the United States Bureau of the Census.1 The data indicate that the modest improvement in the economy has not been strong enough to reverse the state’s ongoing job shortage, high unemployment rate, or rapid acceleration of low-wage work that fails to provide a pathway to the middle class.2 The result is unshared economic growth and prolonged economic insecurity for millions of North Carolinians.