Jury Pool Profile

Lenoir County, North Carolina

Republican +6.8 (2024)

County seat: Kinston
Judicial district: 9th Judicial District Superior Court
Population (July 2025 estimate): 55,837; Census PEP. The five-year ACS survey average is 54,919.

At a glance

Lenoir County is a 55,837-person venue. The county population is 49% White and 39% Black (Census race-alone categories). Median household income is $52,084, $21,971 below the NC state median of $74,055; 16.3% of residents 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher. 8.3% of residents 5 and older speak a language other than English at home, most commonly Spanish. The largest employment sector is Manufacturing, at 27.7% of covered employment, average pay $57,788/year. Trailing-12-month unemployment is 3.86%, above the 3.75% state average. The county carried the Republican presidential candidate in 2016, 2020, and 2024, taking 51% to 53% of the vote across the three.

Population: 54,919
Median household income: $45,143
Unemployment: 3.9%

Who sits on a jury?

Majority-minority

<50% in any single race-alone group. White here: 49%; Black: 39%.

Lenoir County has a population of 54,919, with a median age of 41.9. By Census race-alone categories, White residents make up 49.5%; Black residents 39.3%. Independently, 8.8% of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino of any race.

The median household earns $52,084; 16.3% of residents 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher; 19.1% live below the federal poverty line.

Race & ethnicity

White (non-Hispanic) 25,969 47.3%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 4,843 8.8%
Black or African American (non-Hispanic) 21,540 39.2%
Asian (non-Hispanic) 410 0.7%
Two or more races (non-Hispanic) 1,967 3.6%
American Indian / Alaska Native (non-Hispanic) 58 0.1%
Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander (non-Hispanic) 18 0.0%
Some other race (non-Hispanic) 114 0.2%

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Age distribution

Median age 41.9

Under 18 12,393 22.6%
18–24 4,339 7.9%
25–44 12,407 22.6%
45–64 13,999 25.5%
65 and over 11,781 21.5%

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Income & poverty

Median household income: $52,084; 90% interval $46,626–$57,542; −$21,971 vs NC · 89th of 100
Below poverty line: 19.1%; 90% interval 15.6%–22.6%; +6.5 pp vs NC · 21st of 100

U.S. Census SAIPE 2024

Economic context

Led by manufacturing and healthcare & education

Largest sector in BLS QCEW: Manufacturing, 8,204 jobs; Education & health services, 6,860, is within 20% of it.

Manufacturing is the largest employment sector at 27.7% of covered employment, followed by Education & health services at 23.1%. Trailing-12-month unemployment is 3.86%, above the North Carolina state average.

Local economy

Unemployment (12-mo): 3.9%; +0.11 pp vs. state
County GDP: $3.6B; 0.43% of state
Avg. annual pay: $52,662
Establishments: 1,327

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

Top employment sectors

Average annual employment by supersector

Manufacturing 8,204 27.7%
Education & health services 6,860 23.1%
Trade, transportation & utilities 5,190 17.5%
Professional & business services 2,080 7.0%
Leisure & hospitality 2,012 6.8%
Public administration 1,520 5.1%
Financial activities 822 2.8%
Information 32 0.1%

The sectors listed cover 90.2% of covered employment; BLS withholds the rest to avoid disclosing individual employers.

BLS QCEW 2025

Housing

Home ownership: 59.2%; −7.4 pp vs NC · 96th of 100
Median gross rent: $861; −$367 vs NC · 58th of 100
Owner-occupied: 13,826
Renter-occupied: 9,525

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Local economy in 3 reads

Concentrated

Top three sectors employ 68% of the county workforce. Most panelists likely share employer relationships within these sectors, surface those connections early in voir dire before any institutional-defendant or sector-specific framing.
Moderate wage spread

Highest-paid sector (Financial activities, $69,934/yr) pays 3.4× the lowest (Leisure & hospitality, $20,509/yr). Expect meaningful income variation across the panel.
Institutional employer scale

Average establishment employs 22 workers, typical of an institutional-employer economy where large hospitals, plants, schools, and government agencies dominate. Expect many panelists to share an employer rather than work for themselves.

BLS QCEW 2025

Largest employers

Principal employers by headcount

2 of the top 5 employers on this list (5 of the listed 10) are in manufacturing, accounting for 4,390 employees on this list. So manufacturing is the largest sector by employment here, but most of the county's five biggest named employers sit 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	Sanderson Farms	Poultry processing	1,725
2	Lenoir County Schools	Public education	1,249
3	Caswell Center	Health care (state developmental center)	1,105
4	UNC Lenoir	Hospital and health care	1,028
5	Smithfield Foods	Meat processing	788
6	Spirit Aerosystems	Aerospace manufacturing	715
7	Fly Exclusive	Private aviation (air charter); aircraft maintenance in Kinston	640
8	Masterbrand	Cabinet manufacturing	600
9	West Pharmaceutical	Pharmaceutical packaging manufacturing	562
10	Lenoir Co Admin	County government	504

Source: City of Kinston, North Carolina, Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, Table 18 'Principal Employers, Current Year and Nine Years Ago', 2025 column. Sources printed are Lenoir County Economic Development, the Employment Security Commission and employers' HR managers. The list covers all of Lenoir County, not the city alone. (2025)

Political composition

Consistently Republican

Republican candidate carried this county in 2016, 2020, and 2024 (avg winning share: 52%). 'Strongly' threshold: ≥60% avg.

Lenoir County was carried by the Republican candidate in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 cycles, with 53.0% in 2024, 51.4% in 2020, 52.4% in 2016.

Presidential results

2024 presidential · 27,465 votes cast

Republican
Democratic

Republican 14,564 53.0%
Democratic 12,700 46.2%
Other / third-party 201 0.7%

Election results 2024

Languages, households, faith & health

Family-majority, English-speaking

Family households are 61% of all households (thresholds: ≥70% = 'family-dominant'; 50–70% = 'family-majority'; <50% = 'singles/nonfamily-majority'). 8.3% of residents 5 and older speak a language other than English at home (threshold for 'linguistically diverse' is ≥10%).

8.3% of residents 5 years and older speak a language other than English at home. The most common are Spanish, Vietnamese, German or other West Germanic. Veterans account for 8.3% of the adult civilian population (3,539 individuals).

Languages spoken at home

91.7% speak only English at home

Spanish 3,823 7.4%
Vietnamese 111 0.2%
German or other West Germanic 51 0.1%
Arabic 34 0.1%
Chinese 23 0.0%
French, Haitian, or Cajun 18 0.0%
Korean 3 0.0%

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Household composition

Households: 23,351
Family households: 14,191; 60.8% of households
Married couples w/ children: 2,466; 17.4% of families
Single-mother families: 2,719; 19.2% of families
Veterans: 3,539; 8.3% of civilians 18+

U.S. Census ACS 2024

Religious composition

54.2% overall adherence rate

Evangelical Protestant 19,927 36.2%
Mainline Protestant 4,156 7.5%
Black Protestant 3,018 5.5%
Other (non-Christian + minor traditions) 1,427 2.6%
Catholic 1,357 2.5%

US Religion Census 2020

Health & education

Health insured: 89.9%; ±1.4 pp
Uninsured: 10.1%; ±1.4 pp; 47th of 100
With a disability: 23.5%; ±1.7 pp; 3rd of 100
Bachelor's or higher: 16.3%; ±1.5 pp; −19.4 pp vs NC · 89th of 100
Uninsured, under 65 (2024): 12.4%; 90% interval 11.1%–13.7% · 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: 9th 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: Goldsboro, Kinston, Snow Hill

This judicial district spans multiple counties.

Court reference

Traffic safety context

Lenoir totals, 2024 — the per-100k rate is based on 15 recorded deaths, too few to be statistically reliable

Traffic fatalities: 15; 35.27 per 100k adults (18+)
Fatal crashes: 13

NHTSA FARS 2024