Note: This article was first published in Carolina Journal, August 8th
The report card for North Carolina’s economy is terrific — if you live in Raleigh, Durham, Wilmington, or Charlotte.
I came up in Connecticut, where there are two distinctly different economies and actually two pretty distinct sets of people. In the bottom of Connecticut, you’ve basically got the New Yorkers, who live in Fairfield County. It is pretty much the land of milk and honey, populated with the preppy bourgeois and the smarty pants. There is low unemployment and high opportunity.
In the rest of Connecticut, where I am from, things are different. There is not much opportunity and a largely sagging economy. The old manufacturing plants where my family members once worked are almost all gone. In fact, there has been a net loss of population over the past two decades. It is hard to believe that such a dramatic contrast exists in a state that only takes an hour to cross.
In some ways, it’s equally surprising to experience that same divide more than once in a single lifetime. For example, I came to North Carolina in 1988 to go to school. What I have found is that there is an even more dramatic difference between the haves and the have-nots in North Carolina than there was in Connecticut. If you live in the Triangle area (where I live), or in an area like Mecklenburg County, you are likely to experience strong public schools and good jobs with good wages. Much more importantly, there is a true opportunity for self-advancement.
Take for example, the Triangle area (home to booming cities like Raleigh, Cary, Durham, Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, Apex, and Morrisville). If you are an entrepreneur, there are dozens of entrepreneurial support groups that can assist you in developing your business. There are also at least three excellent universities that support the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Simply, if you’re trying to rise, I cannot think of a better place to do it than in the Triangle area, even compared to any other part of the country I have visited.
Look at schools and public education. The average SAT score of a kid who graduates from Apex High School is about 1300. Meanwhile, at Beverly Hills High School (yes, the rich place in California), the average SAT score is about 1360. Not much of a difference at all. The point is that the range of difference in education between our metro areas and the most affluent areas of the country is actually very small (note that I am not including parts of urban areas that still face serious economic challenges).
Now, let’s look at the other North Carolina — the areas where not everything is so hunky-dory. The contrast is striking. These areas are home to good, hardworking people who are striving but who do not have nearly the same level of opportunity. They remind me of my hometown of Milford, Connecticut, where solid Americans are often left behind.
One clear example of the disparities within North Carolina can be seen somewhere like Vance County. Currently, the high school graduation rate in Vance County is about 77.1%. That’s significantly lower than Wake County’s 91.4% rate, highlighting the stark educational disparities between neighboring communities in North Carolina. We are not talking about areas that are hours apart. The business formation rate in Vance County is also considerably lower than what we see in Wake County. When you combine fewer businesses with lower graduation rates, you begin to understand how limited the opportunities are in some parts of our state.
The point is that there are two distinct North Carolinas, but we tend to blend them all into one. One is doing fine; the other, not so much. And, the recent population growth (or the lack of it) makes the point crystal clear. Mecklenburg and Wake counties, home to Charlotte and Raleigh, have added over 190,000 residents between 2020 and 2024. Meanwhile, counties like Hertford and Northampton have lost population, with declines of around 12% and 5% respectively. The politicians like to take credit for the aggregate North Carolina numbers, but they ignore the reality that these different realities exist within the same state.
So, what do we do? As a state blessed with tremendous resources, we’ve got to start helping the areas of the state that are falling behind. And, this does not really mean more government spending orraising taxes in counties that can’t afford them. What is needed is a collaboration of good-hearted individuals and organizations to come together to help the areas of the state that need a hand. This means creating a stronger bridge between the resources in our more developed areas and the people in the other areas who need the help. We’ve done this successfully at both the Brian Hamilton Foundation and Inmates to Entrepreneurs, an organization that I started with Reverend Robert Harris back in 1992, and I believe it’s a model worth expanding.
Let’s create a volunteer-driven, zero-taxpayer-dollar network to bring resources directly to the counties and communities that need them most. Let’s get North Carolina corporations to fund high-impact programs that teach kids about entrepreneurship, work skills, and financial literacy. And let’s activate a statewide movement of volunteers to help kids in school, especially in places where they don’t have the support they need.
There’s precedent for this. Programs like Reading Partners and Big Brothers Big Sisters have already proven that volunteer-driven mentoring works. So let’s do it here, at scale, and with a focus on real economic empowerment. If we teach kids how to start businesses, balance budgets and think like job creators, we give them the tools to transform their own lives and their communities.
There is no good argument I’ve ever heard for handing things out to people, but the truth is that we do not have a level playing field here in North Carolina. Not even close. A kid growing up in Lumberton, North Carolina, should have the same opportunity as my kids do. The opportunity to be an entrepreneur. The opportunity to get a good education. The opportunity to rise.
