By Dan Frosch | Photographs by Angela Owens/WSJ

LAURINBURG, N.C. -- In this impoverished stretch of North Carolina, the clock is ticking on President Trump's promise of economic relief.

Across the pine forests and cotton fields of Scotland County, the signs of loss are everywhere. Medical-device and towel factories shut down some two decades ago. Boarded-up brick homes blight residential streets in Laurinburg, the county seat. When a high-school teacher asked his students to imagine where they would be in five years, some answers were bleak.

"Still in Laurinburg, getting food stamps," one student wrote.

Trump rode a tide of deep economic frustration to win the White House, with assurances of lower prices and a restoration of American economic opportunity. That message resonated in Scotland County, one of North Carolina's poorest. People here are desperate for their fortunes to turn.

"If something doesn't give for our economy, we won't be around," said Bill Carmichael, a seventh-generation farmer who voted for Trump, and traces his lineage back to Scottish Highlanders who settled in the area during the 1700s.

Nationally, Republicans are worried about fallout from stubbornly high prices as the president focuses on issues such as foreign policy and diversity programs. Trump's proposed tariffs could push prices higher. On Tuesday night, he is expected to make his first address to Congress since taking office.

Scotland County, home to 34,000, was once so reliably Democratic that Republicans rarely bothered to compete in local races. But Trump won the last two elections here. Voters also swept in a GOP majority on the county commission.

At the same time, disillusionment is creeping in. People here say they just need help soon.

"This is a 12-, 18-month situation. We better see some relief, or we may be looking at shutting down the farm, turning the land over and renting it," Carmichael said.

A Democrat, he voted for Trump a second time in November, counting on him to ease costs threatening his 1,000-acre corn, soybean and wheat farm. The prices of diesel fuel, tractor tires and machine lubricant are all up. Interest rates on loans for new equipment now run at least 9%.

Carmichael is also struggling with lower crop prices, which he fears tariffs could drive down further.

Others have even less breathing room. Beset by the loss of Abbott Laboratories and WestPoint Stevens plants in the 2000s, poverty in the county has surged, hitting 29%. The county's unemployment was recently 5.7%, well above the national rate. Locals lean heavily on government assistance programs such as Medicaid.

Scotland County is mostly divided between Black and white residents, along with a sizable portion of Lumbee tribal members. It is the kind of the place that helped Trump secure the swing state, even though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans roughly 2 to 1.

Trump won 53% of the vote here in November, adding about 300 votes from his 2020 tally. Votes cast by Black voters fell by about 400 from four years earlier, according to data compiled by Democracy North Carolina, a nonprofit that advocates for minority voter participation.

Babara Bellot, a 45-year-old single mother who is Black, skipped November's election, and hasn't voted for a presidential candidate since Barack Obama.

The $20 an hour she earns as a quality control worker at a company that makes automotive clutches is barely enough.

Bellot limits the family's electricity and car use to keep utility and gasoline costs down. New clothes sometimes come from thrift or bargain stores. When her car starter went out a few months ago, a friend lent a portion of the $381 to fix it and she worked extra hours to pay it back. Bellot relies on Medicaid to provide healthcare for herself, her 10-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son. She tries to stay optimistic and encourage her children, and takes pride in her ability to save money during hard times.

"I have to let them know that although our circumstances may not always be where we would like it to be, I still have to put on my uniform. I still have to go to work," she said. "I still have to bring home the bacon and cut it up as many times as I need to so we can survive. And we hope that things will get better."

Bellot recounted how one recent morning, her son, Mekhi, told her he had been dreaming about Disney World: "Mom, I saw a whole bunch of stuff! I was on the roller coaster ride and I saw everybody down there," he said excitedly. Bellot told her son to get dressed for school.

"Mom, have you been to Disney World?" he asked. No, she said.

"One day, we're going to go," Mekhi assured her. Bellot smiled.

The county, which sits in the south-central part of the state along the South Carolina border, is checkered with both decay and glimmers of economic life.

A faded wooden sign that reads "Poor Man's Produce," leans alongside a country road, where an elderly couple once sold fruits and vegetables at reduced prices.

The Laurinburg Institute, a historically Black school that Dizzy Gillespie once attended, has been partially closed for several years because of hurricane damage.

But the campus is hoping to finally fully reopen in September, school president Frank McDuffie said. Meanwhile, local officials have sought to recast the area as a way station for drivers, including people headed to the coast from Charlotte and Raleigh. Fast-food restaurants have sprouted up around a local highway.

Many say it isn't enough. The county wants to lure advanced manufacturing to the area, hoping that will draw workers who could get specialized training a nearby community college, while also bringing in more white-collar, upper management jobs.

"We don't have anything going on here," said Jeff Shelley, a newly elected Republican county commissioner.

Shelley, a poultry farmer and horse breeder, was a Democrat until switching parties in 2016. His mother and grandfather also served as Democratic county commissioners. He ran on a platform of lowering property taxes as a way to bring back businesses and industry to Scotland County, tying himself to Trump.

Trump's focus on cuts to federal agencies -- and his other musings such as acquiring Greenland -- don't bother Shelley.

"Whatever we gain from Greenland, whether it's minerals or something else, somebody's got to process it. Why can't we build that here?" Shelley said. "We can't stay like we are."

Shelley said he's struggled to find workers to clean his horse stalls, and he would like Trump to tighten work requirements for public assistance in hopes it will drive more people to take the kinds of jobs he needs to fill.

"I will not ask you to do anything I'm not going to do," Shelley said. "It's not like I'm going in the office and drinking a cold glass of tea, while y'all out here sweating. No dude, I'm sweating right beside you."

Joe Graves, a social-studies teacher at Scotland High School, sees the lost hope in some of his students. Graves, 37, grew up in a trailer outside of town. He got a job at a steel plant right out of high school making $50,000 until he was laid off when the plant downsized and then closed. He's since worked at McDonald's, as a garbage truck driver and a grave digger before getting his degree in 2015 and becoming a teacher.

He tries to tell his senior class that there are chances for them in the real world. He holds up his own path from poverty as an example. Some, though, can't imagine a future beyond government assistance.

Graves presses students on the importance of civic engagement. But he couldn't bring himself to vote in November. He and his wife, also a teacher, struggle to support four kids on their combined $90,000 income.

"When you're making just enough to survive, it's hard to save anything. If you get a flat tire, you start over again, because you gotta get that tire," he said, recounting how the family's dishwasher recently broke. They can't afford a new one.

Scotland County's troubles remind him of a lyric from "Song of the South, " by the band Alabama, about the plight of a Southern cotton farm family during the Great Depression: "Well, somebody told us Wall Street fell. But we were so poor that we couldn't tell."

Write to Dan Frosch at dan.frosch@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 03, 2025 21:00 ET (02:00 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.