Two comparisons, both shown. The national basis ranks Strafford 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 New Hampshire'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.
Strafford County scores 54.9 on the national CAERI basis — 1026th of 3,142 scored U.S. counties, placing it in the 50th–75th band nationally by percentile, with a medium-confidence rating. Within New Hampshire it ranks 3rd of 10 counties (75th 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 96th national percentile. The largest concentrations of locally estimated employment in high-exposure occupations are customer service representatives, software developers, office clerks, general. The share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 is 8% — well 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 29% (below the state median) — a higher share historically means slower workforce adjustment when industries restructure. Fiscal sensitivity ranks at the 36th percentile among New Hampshire's counties. Census of Governments data shows state aid at 21% 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 214 high-exposure occupations (top quartile of ensemble exposure) with estimated local employment, Strafford County has an estimated 15,555 jobs — 32.2% of county employment — carrying an estimated $2B annual wage bill in high-exposure work. The five largest:
| Occupation | Est. local employment* | Exposure (0–1) | Median wage (area) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer Service Representatives | 731 | 0.42 | $49,060 |
| Software Developers | 673 | 0.65 | $154,240 |
| Office Clerks, General | 615 | 0.44 | $49,670 |
| Accountants and Auditors | 538 | 0.48 | $97,580 |
| First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers | 509 | 0.47 | $76,980 |
| Strafford County | New Hampshire median | |
|---|---|---|
| Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 (entry rung) | 7.9% | 6.8% |
| Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers 55+ (adjustment friction) | 29.3% | 32.6% |
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.
Request city-level accesscaeri:33017
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StrataHelm. (2026). Strafford County, New Hampshire — Community AI Exposure & Resilience Index (CAERI v0.3.1) [Data set]. Retrieved August 4, 2026, from https://stratahelm.com/counties/new-hampshire/strafford/
“Strafford County, New Hampshire — CAERI.” StrataHelm, 2026, stratahelm.com/counties/new-hampshire/strafford/. Accessed 4 August 2026.
StrataHelm. “Strafford County, New Hampshire — Community AI Exposure and Resilience Index (v0.3.1).” 2026. https://stratahelm.com/counties/new-hampshire/strafford/
Machine-readable: this county's JSON · national dataset download and data dictionary on the methodology page.
Belknap Co., NH (in state)Hillsborough Co., NH (in state)Carroll Co., NH (in state)Bourbon Co., KY (similar score)Bates Co., MO (similar score)Karnes Co., TX (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_nh_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_nh.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_nh_county_revenue_mix: 2022 Census of Governments, Survey of Government Finances; lodes_nh_county_flows: LEHD LODES8 OD 2023, JT00/S000; sources: nh_main, nh_aux, ma_aux, me_aux, vt_aux; qwi_nh_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/ |