Effective June 30, 2013, North Carolina will make a change to unemployment benefits that will see about 70,000 people lose that source of income.

In rural counties, where the population is smaller and job opportunities fewer, the impact of such a change reduces money being spent in the local economy.

Click on a county below to see total population and how many people in each collect state and federal unemployment benefits.

While North Carolina's official unemployment rate stood at 8.5 percent as of April, there are even more people underemployed or who, discouraged, have dropped out of the labor pool.

^{Data on this map is current as of June 1, 2013.}