STRATAHELM · COMMUNITY AI EXPOSURE & RESILIENCE INDEX

Brookings County, South Dakota

CAERI National › South Dakota › Brookings County · FIPS 46011 · caeri:46011
49.0
CAERI score (national basis)
25th–50th
National percentile band
#1652
Ranked of 3142 U.S. counties
#25
Ranked in South Dakota (of 66)
Medium
Confidence

Two comparisons, both shown. The national basis ranks Brookings 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 South Dakota'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.

Pillar breakdown — national percentile ranks

P1 · Direct occupational exposure
87
P2 · Economic concentration
23
P3 · Adaptive capacity (inverted)
81
P4 · Regional buffer (inverted)
66
P5 · Fiscal sensitivity
57
Zone shading marks percentile quartiles; darker and warmer means more concerning. Capacity and buffer bars (inverted before aggregation) read mirrored — for those, a higher percentile is the safer pale end.

What this means for Brookings County

Brookings County scores 49.0 on the national CAERI basis — 1652nd of 3,142 scored U.S. counties, placing it in the 25th–50th band nationally by percentile, with a medium-confidence rating. Within South Dakota it ranks 25th of 66 counties (63th 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 87th national percentile. The largest concentrations of locally estimated employment in high-exposure occupations are bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks, elementary school teachers, except special education, secondary school teachers, except special and career/technical education. The share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 is 18% — well above the state median of 8%; 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 19% (well below the state median) — a higher share historically means slower workforce adjustment when industries restructure. Fiscal sensitivity ranks at the 48th percentile among South Dakota's counties. Census of Governments data shows state aid at 2% of this county's general revenue (well below the state median), and wage- and consumption-sensitive streams (sales, income, and similar own-source taxes, where levied) at 12% 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.

Largest locally-estimated employment in high-exposure occupations

Across all 205 high-exposure occupations (top quartile of ensemble exposure) with estimated local employment, Brookings County has an estimated 4,088 jobs — 25.3% of county employment — carrying an estimated $251M annual wage bill in high-exposure work. The five largest:

OccupationEstimated local employment*Exposure (0–1)Median wage (area)
Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks3650.51$45,140
Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education3180.43$49,230
Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education2360.49$49,700
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive2130.50$41,700
Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products1620.43$75,500
*These are estimates, and cannot be anything else. No federal survey measures employment by occupation at county level — not for this county, and not for any county in the United States. Every figure in this table is therefore a model-based ESTIMATE built from published federal data, never a count of actual jobs. They are built to compare occupations and places rather than to be read as headcounts, and their accuracy differs by occupation group — our methodology §5.1 publishes the measured error, including the groups we estimate high and the groups we estimate low. Every county also carries the confidence rating shown above. Wage = area median.

Age structure of exposed-industry employment

Brookings CountySouth Dakota median
Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers under 25 (entry rung) 18.3%8.2%
Share of exposed-industry jobs held by workers 55+ (adjustment friction) 18.5%26.5%

🔒 City-level detail for its cities and towns

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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Cite this page

Canonical identifier: caeri:46011 — this URL is permanent; if the address scheme ever changes, the old address will redirect. StrataHelm. (2026). Brookings County, South Dakota — Community AI Exposure & Resilience Index (CAERI v1.0.0) [Data set]. Retrieved October 4, 2026, from https://stratahelm.com/counties/south-dakota/brookings/ “Brookings County, South Dakota — CAERI.” StrataHelm, 2026, stratahelm.com/counties/south-dakota/brookings/. Accessed 4 October 2026. StrataHelm. “Brookings County, South Dakota — Community AI Exposure and Resilience Index (v1.0.0).” 2026. https://stratahelm.com/counties/south-dakota/brookings/
Embed this county's score card — attribution to StrataHelm CAERI and the link back are part of the embedded page and cannot be stripped:<iframe src="https://stratahelm.com/counties/south-dakota/brookings/embed/" width="420" height="275" loading="lazy" title="CAERI — Brookings County, SD"></iframe>

Machine-readable: this county's JSON · national dataset download and data dictionary on the methodology page.

Nearby and comparable counties

Hyde County, SD (in state)Jackson County, SD (in state)Todd County, SD (in state)Poinsett County, AR (similar score)Vigo County, IN (similar score)Adair County, KY (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.

Sources & provenance

LayerSources (vintage)
Employment & occupation structurecbp_sd_county_naics4: Census CBP 2023 API (NAICS2017 classification; PAYANN in $1,000s; noise infusion G/H/J bands, D = withheld -&gt; NaN); county_soc_estimates.meta_sd.json; exposure_scores: 2026-10-02; matrix_staffing_patterns: 2024-34 National Employment Matrix (base year 2024)
AI-exposure research baseAnthropic Economic Index; Felten, Raj & Seamans (AIOE); Eloundou et al. — combined as a weighted ensemble with cross-source disagreement feeding the confidence rating
Capacity, buffer & fiscalgovfin_sd_county_revenue_mix: 2022 Census of Governments, Survey of Government Finances; lodes_sd_county_flows: LEHD LODES8 OD 2023, JT00/S000; sources: sd_main, sd_aux, ia_aux, mn_aux, mt_aux, nd_aux, ne_aux, wy_aux; qwi_sd_county_naics3_age: Census QWI (qwi/sa), quarters [&#x27;2025-Q1&#x27;, &#x27;2025-Q2&#x27;, &#x27;2025-Q3&#x27;, &#x27;2025-Q4&#x27;], sex=0, ownercode=A05 (private), 96 NAICS-3 + &#x27;00&#x27; all-industry
MethodologyCAERI v1.0.0 · public methodology · scores generated 2026-10-02 · page generated 2026-10-04
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