Keep Recent Economic News in Perspective

By John Hood

RALEIGH — Here are three stories about North Carolina’s economy that made headlines last week — each undeniably newsworthy and yet each requiring more information to put in proper historical context.

First, North Carolina’s gross domestic product grew by 5.6% in inflation-adjusted terms during the third quarter of 2025, far exceeding the national (4.4%) and regional (4.5%) averages. Only five states experienced faster growth during the quarter.

Second, North Carolina attracted more domestic in-migration last year — more than 84,000 net new residents from mid-2024 to mid-2025 — than any other state in the nation.

And third, North Carolina officials announced major new investments in manufacturing facilities for John Deere tractors (in Kernersville), Corning optical cable (in Hickory), and Genentech biotechnology (in Holly Springs).

All good news, to be sure. But one shouldn’t assess economic performance on the basis of a single week, month, quarter, or year. Conditions and trajectories change. No state or region ever holds the top (or bottom) spot for a long period of time. North Carolinians can be justly pleased with their state’s relative performance in recent years, and their elected officials justly proud of the policy reforms they’ve enacted, while also recognizing ample room for improvement.

If we widen the GDP statistic from a single quarter to a decade, for example, North Carolina ranked 13th in inflation-adjusted growth from 2015 to 2025, with our 31% increase in real GDP beating the national average (27%) while merely tying the Southeastern average. South Carolina (34%), Tennessee (34%), and Georgia (32%) modestly outpaced us.

With regard to domestic in-migration, North Carolina was tops in the net number of Americans moving to our state but not in rate of in-migration. Our smaller neighbor South Carolina exceeded us there. More significantly, the Carolinas added new residents at a comparatively high clip but our populations are actually growing a bit slower than they did during past decades. America as a whole is experiencing slower population growth, a combination of lower birthrates and less immigration from overseas.

Finally, while job announcements qualify as good news — and I have no reason to doubt that John Deere, Corning, and Genentech will follow through and prosper — there is by now a long history of companies and economic-development officials announcing new or expanded investments that end up smaller than promised, or wholly ephemeral.

The most prominent recent example is Vinfast, the Vietnam-based automaker that years ago announced a new electric-vehicle plant in Chatham County. There’s been little movement on the site. Its fate is, at best, uncertain.

In this case, the plural of anecdote is, indeed, data. Rather than assess the trajectory of North Carolina’s production and labor markets on the basis of headlines, we should focus on broad datasets available over long periods of time.

Take manufacturing jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were some 453,000 North Carolinians employed in manufacturing in December 2025. Twelve months earlier, the figure was 461,000. More generally, the annual average number of manufacturing jobs in North Carolina in 2025 was the second-lowest in a decade. Only in the pandemic-suppressed year of 2020 were fewer North Carolinians working in the sector.

By no means do I offer these clarifications as criticisms. North Carolina’s economy is better than most, and the fiscal and regulatory policies enacted by the General Assembly since 2011 have made our state a more attractive place to live, work, shop, and invest. As for manufacturing, it is making up a decreasing share of total employment because manufacturers have gotten more productive, not because North Carolina is deindustrializing. Our manufacturing output remains robust.

My point is simply that “good” can always be upgraded to “better.” Other states, including some of our neighbors, have been enacting their own reforms. North Carolina policymakers should keep pressing forward — on land-use regulation, permitting reform, hospital competition, workforce housing, education, infrastructure, and other priorities.

Economic development isn’t a sprint. It isn’t even a marathon. It’s a high-stakes race with no finish line.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).