STRATAHELM · COMMUNITY AI EXPOSURE & RESILIENCE INDEX

Madera County, California

CAERI National › California › Madera County · FIPS 06039 · caeri:06039
40.2
CAERI score (national basis)
Bottom 25%
National percentile band
#2566
Ranked of 3142 U.S. counties
#58
Ranked in California (of 58)
High
Confidence

Two comparisons, both shown. The national basis ranks Madera County against every scored U.S. county — its percentile band above is a relative national standing, not a condition. The in-state basis ranks it against California's other counties (rank and percentile only — bands aren't meaningful within a single state). A county can stand out in its own state while sitting mid-pack nationally. Neither is a forecast.

Pillar breakdown — national percentile ranks

P1 · Direct occupational exposure
33
P2 · Economic concentration
36
P3 · Adaptive capacity (inverted)
48
P4 · Regional buffer (inverted)
61
P5 · Fiscal sensitivity
44
Zone shading marks percentile quartiles; darker and warmer means more concerning. Capacity and buffer bars (inverted before aggregation) read mirrored — for those, a higher percentile is the safer pale end.

What this means for Madera County

Madera County scores 40.2 on the national CAERI basis — 2566th of 3,142 scored U.S. counties, placing it in the Bottom 25% band nationally by percentile, with a high-confidence rating. Within California it ranks 58th of 58 counties (1th in-state percentile). The score summarizes how concentrated local employment is in AI-exposed occupations against the economy's measured capacity to adapt; these are relative-standing bands, not a projection of local job change.

Direct occupational exposure stands at the 33rd national percentile. The largest concentrations of locally estimated employment in high-exposure occupations are office clerks, general, substitute teachers, short-term, eligibility interviewers, government programs. The share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 is 8% — above the state median of 7%; research on AI-era payrolls finds early-career roles in exposed work are where hiring patterns shift first, so this share indicates how soon exposure could be felt, not how large it is.

The share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers 55 and over is 28% (below the state median) — a higher share historically means slower workforce adjustment when industries restructure. Fiscal sensitivity ranks at the 48th percentile among California's counties. Census of Governments data shows state aid at 39% of this county's general revenue (well above the state median), and wage- and consumption-sensitive streams (sales, income, and similar own-source taxes, where levied) at 18% of own-source revenue. Property taxes, which respond to economic change more slowly, are counted separately and are not part of that sensitive share. How this state's aid formulas and tax structure carry economic change into local budgets is covered in the state-specific fiscal analysis available to subscribers. All county occupation figures on this page are model-based ESTIMATES with the confidence rating shown above.

Largest locally-estimated employment in high-exposure occupations

Across all 204 high-exposure occupations (top quartile of ensemble exposure) with estimated local employment, Madera County has an estimated 8,460 jobs — 19.6% of county employment — carrying an estimated $613M annual wage bill in high-exposure work. The five largest:

OccupationEstimated local employment*Exposure (0–1)Median wage (area)
Office Clerks, General7060.44$46,070
Substitute Teachers, Short-Term6290.43$54,890
Eligibility Interviewers, Government Programs4670.40$59,300
Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education4050.43$78,800
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive3530.50$50,100
*These are estimates, and cannot be anything else. No federal survey measures employment by occupation at county level — not for this county, and not for any county in the United States. Every figure in this table is therefore a model-based ESTIMATE built from published federal data, never a count of actual jobs. They are built to compare occupations and places rather than to be read as headcounts, and their accuracy differs by occupation group — our methodology §5.1 publishes the measured error, including the groups we estimate high and the groups we estimate low. Every county also carries the confidence rating shown above. Wage = area median.

Age structure of exposed-industry employment

Madera CountyCalifornia median
Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 (entry rung) 7.6%7.0%
Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers 55+ (adjustment friction) 27.5%28.8%

🔒 City-level detail for its cities and towns

The county number above averages over every community in it. City- and place-level exposure profiles, employer-mix detail, trend monitoring, and peer benchmarking are part of the CAERI subscription for local governments and regional organizations.

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Cite this page

Canonical identifier: caeri:06039 — this URL is permanent; if the address scheme ever changes, the old address will redirect. StrataHelm. (2026). Madera County, California — Community AI Exposure & Resilience Index (CAERI v1.0.0) [Data set]. Retrieved October 4, 2026, from https://stratahelm.com/counties/california/madera/ “Madera County, California — CAERI.” StrataHelm, 2026, stratahelm.com/counties/california/madera/. Accessed 4 October 2026. StrataHelm. “Madera County, California — Community AI Exposure and Resilience Index (v1.0.0).” 2026. https://stratahelm.com/counties/california/madera/
Embed this county's score card — attribution to StrataHelm CAERI and the link back are part of the embedded page and cannot be stripped:<iframe src="https://stratahelm.com/counties/california/madera/embed/" width="420" height="275" loading="lazy" title="CAERI — Madera County, CA"></iframe>

Machine-readable: this county's JSON · national dataset download and data dictionary on the methodology page.

Nearby and comparable counties

Imperial County, CA (in state)Trinity County, CA (in state)Colusa County, CA (in state)Somerset County, PA (similar score)Wahkiakum County, WA (similar score)Cloud County, KS (similar score)

Links point to the economically nearest counties (in-state, and similar national score). County-level geographic adjacency is not part of the public reference data, so proximity here is by rank, not by shared border.

Sources & provenance

LayerSources (vintage)
Employment & occupation structurecbp_ca_county_naics4: Census CBP 2023 API (NAICS2017 classification; PAYANN in $1,000s; noise infusion G/H/J bands, D = withheld -&gt; NaN); county_soc_estimates.meta_ca.json; exposure_scores: 2026-10-02; matrix_staffing_patterns: 2024-34 National Employment Matrix (base year 2024)
AI-exposure research baseAnthropic Economic Index; Felten, Raj & Seamans (AIOE); Eloundou et al. — combined as a weighted ensemble with cross-source disagreement feeding the confidence rating
Capacity, buffer & fiscalgovfin_ca_county_revenue_mix: 2022 Census of Governments, Survey of Government Finances; lodes_ca_county_flows: LEHD LODES8 OD 2023, JT00/S000; sources: ca_main, ca_aux, az_aux, nv_aux, or_aux; qwi_ca_county_naics3_age: Census QWI (qwi/sa), quarters [&#x27;2025-Q1&#x27;, &#x27;2025-Q2&#x27;, &#x27;2025-Q3&#x27;, &#x27;2025-Q4&#x27;], sex=0, ownercode=A05 (private), 96 NAICS-3 + &#x27;00&#x27; all-industry
MethodologyCAERI v1.0.0 · public methodology · scores generated 2026-10-02 · page generated 2026-10-04
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