Jury Pool Profile

Haywood County, North Carolina

Republican +25.1 (2024)

County seat: Waynesville
Judicial district: 43rd Judicial District Superior Court
Population (July 2025 estimate): 63,369; Census PEP. The five-year ACS survey average is 62,662.

At a glance

Haywood County is a 63,369-person venue. The county population is 91% White (Census race-alone categories). Median household income is $65,113, $8,942 below the NC state median of $74,055; 29.5% of residents 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher. 3.8% of residents 5 and older speak a language other than English at home, most commonly Spanish. The largest employment sector is Trade, transportation & utilities, at 22.1% of covered employment, average pay $43,040/year. Trailing-12-month unemployment is 3.38%, below the 3.75% state average. The county carried the Republican presidential candidate in 2016, 2020, and 2024, taking roughly 62% of the vote each time.

Population: 62,662
Median household income: $61,912
Unemployment: 3.4%

Who sits on a jury?

Predominantly White

≥70% White (race-alone) and <20% Black. This county: 91% / 1%.

Haywood County has a population of 62,662, with a median age of 47.8. By Census race-alone categories, White residents make up 91.2%; Black residents 0.9%. Independently, 5.0% of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino of any race.

The median household earns $65,113; 29.5% of residents 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher; 13.6% live below the federal poverty line.

Race & ethnicity

White (non-Hispanic) 56,657 90.4%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 3,103 5.0%
Black or African American (non-Hispanic) 545 0.9%
Asian (non-Hispanic) 229 0.4%
Two or more races (non-Hispanic) 1,720 2.7%
American Indian / Alaska Native (non-Hispanic) 264 0.4%
Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander (non-Hispanic) 0 0.0%
Some other race (non-Hispanic) 144 0.2%

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Age distribution

Median age 47.8

Under 18 11,025 17.6%
18–24 4,068 6.5%
25–44 14,340 22.9%
45–64 17,123 27.3%
65 and over 16,106 25.7%

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Income & poverty

Median household income: $65,113; 90% interval $59,845–$70,381; −$8,942 vs NC · 44th of 100
Below poverty line: 13.6%; 90% interval 11.3%–15.9%; +1.0 pp vs NC · 58th of 100

U.S. Census SAIPE 2024

Economic context

Led by trade & transportation and healthcare & education

Largest sector in BLS QCEW: Trade, transportation & utilities, 3,846 jobs; Education & health services, 3,772, is within 20% of it.

Trade, transportation & utilities is the largest employment sector at 22.1% of covered employment, followed by Education & health services at 21.6%. Trailing-12-month unemployment is 3.38%, below the North Carolina state average.

Local economy

Unemployment (12-mo): 3.4%; −0.37 pp vs. state
County GDP: $2.6B; 0.31% of state
Avg. annual pay: $49,480
Establishments: 1,936

U.S. BLS 2026M07 · U.S. BEA 2024 · BLS QCEW 2025

Top employment sectors

Average annual employment by supersector

Trade, transportation & utilities 3,846 22.1%
Education & health services 3,772 21.6%
Leisure & hospitality 2,964 17.0%
Professional & business services 1,651 9.5%
Manufacturing 1,386 8.0%
Public administration 1,287 7.4%
Financial activities 634 3.6%
Other services 20 0.1%

The sectors listed cover 89.3% of covered employment; BLS withholds the rest to avoid disclosing individual employers.

BLS QCEW 2025

Housing

Home ownership: 74.9%; +8.3 pp vs NC · 37th of 100
Median gross rent: $1,067; −$161 vs NC · 34th of 100
Owner-occupied: 20,314
Renter-occupied: 6,809

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Local economy in 3 reads

Moderately concentrated

Top three sectors employ 61% of the county workforce. Substantial intra-sector overlap among panelists is likely; confirm employer relationships before sector-specific framing.
Moderate wage spread

Highest-paid sector (Financial activities, $71,422/yr) pays 2.5× the lowest (Leisure & hospitality, $28,386/yr). Expect meaningful income variation across the panel.
Small-business scale

Average establishment employs only 9.0 workers, a small-business-dominated local economy. Expect more self-employed and small-business-owner panelists than in institutional-employer venues.

BLS QCEW 2025

Largest employers

Principal employers by headcount

1 of the 4 employers listed here is in trade, transportation & utilities, accounting for 527 employees on this list. So trade, transportation & utilities is the largest sector by employment here, but the county's biggest named employers sit mostly outside it. A panelist who works somewhere you recognize is probably not working where most of this county works; ask where they work before assuming either pattern fits them.

#	Employer	Sector	Employees
1	Haywood County Consolidated Schools	Public education (K-12 school district)	1,042
2	Haywood Regional Medical Center (Duke LifePoint)	Hospital	912
3	Haywood County Government	County government	559
4	Ingles Markets, Inc.	Supermarkets / grocery retail	527

Showing 4 of 10 employers on the published list(4,905 employees total).

Source: Haywood County, North Carolina, Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, 'Ten Principal Employers, Current Year and Nine Years Ago' schedule, 2025 column. Counts are reported by each employer's human resources department and include all full- and part-time employees. (2025)

Political composition

Consistently strongly Republican

Republican candidate carried this county in 2016, 2020, and 2024 (avg winning share: 62%). 'Strongly' threshold: ≥60% avg.

Haywood County was carried by the Republican candidate in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 cycles, with 62.0% in 2024, 62.5% in 2020, 62.5% in 2016.

Presidential results

2024 presidential · 37,724 votes cast

Republican
Democratic

Republican 23,393 62.0%
Democratic 13,913 36.9%
Other / third-party 418 1.1%

Election results 2024

Languages, households, faith & health

Family-majority, English-speaking

Family households are 65% of all households (thresholds: ≥70% = 'family-dominant'; 50–70% = 'family-majority'; <50% = 'singles/nonfamily-majority'). 3.8% of residents 5 and older speak a language other than English at home (threshold for 'linguistically diverse' is ≥10%).

3.8% of residents 5 years and older speak a language other than English at home. The most common are Spanish, French, Haitian, or Cajun, Vietnamese. Veterans account for 9.7% of the adult civilian population (4,981 individuals).

Languages spoken at home

96.2% speak only English at home

Spanish 1,792 3.0%
French, Haitian, or Cajun 105 0.2%
Vietnamese 93 0.2%
German or other West Germanic 67 0.1%
Korean 22 0.0%
Chinese 15 0.0%
Russian, Polish, or other Slavic 10 0.0%
Arabic 7 0.0%

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Household composition

Households: 27,123
Family households: 17,553; 64.7% of households
Married couples w/ children: 3,441; 19.6% of families
Single-mother families: 1,483; 8.4% of families
Veterans: 4,981; 9.7% of civilians 18+

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Religious composition

61.3% overall adherence rate

Evangelical Protestant 25,366 40.9%
Mainline Protestant 8,500 13.7%
Catholic 2,674 4.3%
Other (non-Christian + minor traditions) 1,018 1.6%
Black Protestant 492 0.8%
Orthodox 30 0.0%

US Religion Census 2020

Health & education

Health insured: 88.6%; ±1.3 pp
Uninsured: 11.4%; ±1.3 pp; 28th of 100
With a disability: 17.3%; ±1.2 pp; 45th of 100
Bachelor's or higher: 29.5%; ±2 pp; −6.2 pp vs NC · 27th of 100
Uninsured, under 65 (2024): 9.9%; 90% interval 8.8%–11.0% · Census SAHIE

The under-65 uninsured rate is not comparable to the ACS insurance figures, which cover all ages.

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Court infrastructure

Trial court: 43rd Judicial District Superior Court
Judges: 1 (Superior Court judges per primary district (general civil + felony criminal jurisdiction); District Court judges (limited jurisdiction) separate. Vintage 2026 nccourts.gov; counts cross-checked against N.C.G.S. § 7A-41.1. Where an urban county (Wake, Mecklenburg, Guilford, Forsyth) is statutorily split into multiple Superior Court districts, all sub-district seats are aggregated under the primary district number used in counties.json. ~109 Superior Court judgeships statewide.)
Court seats: Bryson City, Franklin, Hayesville, Murphy, Robbinsville, Sylva, Waynesville

This judicial district spans multiple counties.

Court reference

Traffic safety context

Haywood totals, 2024 — the per-100k rate is based on 10 recorded deaths, too few to be statistically reliable

Traffic fatalities: 10; 19.37 per 100k adults (18+)
Fatal crashes: 8

NHTSA FARS 2024