Two comparisons, both shown. The national basis ranks Thomas 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 Nebraska'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.
Thomas County scores 23.0 on the national CAERI basis — 3141st of 3,142 scored U.S. counties, placing it in the Bottom 25% band nationally by percentile, with a low-confidence rating. Within Nebraska it ranks 93rd of 93 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 8th national percentile. The largest concentrations of locally estimated employment in high-exposure occupations are secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical, and executive, education administrators, all other, education administrators, kindergarten through secondary. The share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 is 0% — well below the state median of 10%; 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 37% (well above the state median) — a higher share historically means slower workforce adjustment when industries restructure. Fiscal sensitivity ranks at the 8th percentile among Nebraska's counties. Census of Governments data shows state aid at 22% 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 0% 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.
Across all 130 high-exposure occupations (top quartile of ensemble exposure) with estimated local employment, Thomas County has an estimated 45 jobs — 18.6% of county employment — carrying an estimated $3M annual wage bill in high-exposure work. The five largest:
| Occupation | Est. local employment* | Exposure (0–1) | Median wage (area) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive | 3 | 0.50 | $42,470 |
| Education Administrators, All Other | 3 | 0.40 | $96,270 |
| Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary | 2 | 0.42 | $102,470 |
| Public Relations Managers | 2 | 0.43 | $96,270 |
| Medical and Health Services Managers | 2 | 0.40 | $102,820 |
| Thomas County | Nebraska median | |
|---|---|---|
| Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 (entry rung) | 0.0% | 10.1% |
| Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers 55+ (adjustment friction) | 37.0% | 26.5% |
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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StrataHelm. (2026). Thomas County, Nebraska — Community AI Exposure & Resilience Index (CAERI v0.3.1) [Data set]. Retrieved August 4, 2026, from https://stratahelm.com/counties/nebraska/thomas/
“Thomas County, Nebraska — CAERI.” StrataHelm, 2026, stratahelm.com/counties/nebraska/thomas/. Accessed 4 August 2026.
StrataHelm. “Thomas County, Nebraska — Community AI Exposure and Resilience Index (v0.3.1).” 2026. https://stratahelm.com/counties/nebraska/thomas/
Machine-readable: this county's JSON · national dataset download and data dictionary on the methodology page.
Platte Co., NE (in state)Butler Co., NE (in state)Garfield Co., NE (in state)Franklin Co., ID (similar score)Bottineau Co., ND (similar score)Buena Vista Co., IA (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.
| Layer | Sources (vintage) |
|---|---|
| Employment & occupation structure | cbp_ne_county_naics4: Census CBP 2023 API (NAICS2017 classification; PAYANN in $1,000s; noise infusion G/H/J bands, D = withheld -> NaN); county_soc_estimates.meta_ne.json; exposure_scores: 2026-07-04; matrix_staffing_patterns: 2024-34 National Employment Matrix (base year 2024) |
| AI-exposure research base | Anthropic Economic Index; Felten, Raj & Seamans (AIOE); Eloundou et al. — combined as a weighted ensemble with cross-source disagreement feeding the confidence rating |
| Capacity, buffer & fiscal | govfin_ne_county_revenue_mix: 2022 Census of Governments, Survey of Government Finances; lodes_ne_county_flows: LEHD LODES8 OD 2023, JT00/S000; sources: ne_main, ne_aux, co_aux, ia_aux, ks_aux, mo_aux, sd_aux, wy_aux; qwi_ne_county_naics3_age: Census QWI (qwi/sa), quarters ['2024-Q4', '2025-Q1', '2025-Q2', '2025-Q3'], sex=0, ownercode=A05 (private), 96 NAICS-3 + '00' all-industry |
| Methodology | CAERI v0.3.1 · public methodology · scores generated 2026-07-12 · page generated 2026-08-04 |
| License | Free to reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license: reuse or redistribute with attribution to “StrataHelm CAERI” and a link back to this page. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |