Today’s workplace policies were created for a labor force that does not exist, a report released today by experts with the North Carolina Justice Center finds, and increasingly, parents and caregivers are some of the state’s most vulnerable workers. It is essential to the health of the state’s families, workforce, and businesses to [Continue Reading...]
What a year of conservative control has meant to the North Carolina General Assembly. On Monday December 12 NC Policy Watch staffers Chris Fitzsimon and Rob Schofield will be in western North Carolina for two special Crucial Conversations — a lunch event in Asheville and an evening event in Boone. Chris Fitzsimon is the Director [Continue Reading...]
“What would the marriage discrimination amendment really mean for North Carolina?” Next May, North Carolina voters are scheduled to go to the polls to vote on one of the most important and controversial constitutional amendments to ever be placed on a state ballot. The proposed marriage amendment states that “Marriage between one man [Continue Reading...]
What a year of conservative control has meant to the North Carolina General Assembly. What the heck is going on in Raleigh? Why does it seem that state legislative leaders want to repeal most of the good things accomplished during the 20th Century? Recently, the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives went [Continue Reading...]
“What would the marriage discrimination amendment really mean for North Carolina?” Next May, North Carolina voters are scheduled to go to the polls to vote on one of the most important and controversial constitutional amendments to ever be placed on a state ballot. The proposed marriage amendment states that “Marriage between one man and one [Continue Reading...]
Investments in public transit improve life for North Carolinians by creating jobs, enhancing mobility and connecting our communities. But transit plans must be integrated with equitable housing policies and measures that will benefit the entire community, regardless of income bracket, according to a new report by the North Carolina Budget & Tax Center. [Continue Reading...]
NC Policy Watch is happy to announce the release of a special Charlotte edition of its Carolina Issues Poll. The poll, which was conducted by the nationally recognized, Raleigh-based polling firm Public Policy Polling, quizzed 957 voters on October 29-31 regarding a wide variety of current issues, including: The Charlotte mayoral election [Continue Reading...]
North Carolina’s Medicaid program dominates the state’s annual health and human services budget — at just under $3 billion in the current fiscal year, the program represents about 15 percent of total state spending. Medicaid is a vital component of North Carolina’s economic engine, as it injects $9 billion in federal funds into the state’s [Continue Reading...]
Many North Carolina families are struggling, but a new report from Families USA shows that the Affordable Care Act will be an essential tool for aiding families across the state, particularly those suffering after the Great Recession. As last month’s report from the NC Justice Center’s Budget and Tax Center showed, North Carolina’s [Continue Reading...]
(Cross-posted from the website of the N.C. Council of Churches) Over the past several months I’ve been shaking my head at my computer screen, reading headlines from across the Southeast about new state immigration laws. This crop of new laws, enacted in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, and modeled after Arizona’s now [Continue Reading...]
…Even if they don’t know it A special N.C. Health Access Coalition report By Brenna Burch and Adam Searing Medicaid is a state-federal program that functions as a primary social safety net for many middle-class North Carolina families—families that as the result of old age, injury, disease, or catastrophic event face medical and long-term care [Continue Reading...]
Amending North Carolina’s new corporate tax rules to apply retroactively to prior tax years could put $400 million in paid and unpaid state corporate tax revenue at risk, a new report shows. In June, state lawmakers enacted House Bill 619, placing restrictions on the ability of the NC Secretary of Revenue [Continue Reading...]
“No more excuses: Building a lawful, 21st Century system for serving people with mental illness.” Federal law has long commanded the states to deinstitutionalize persons with mental illness; it’s illegal to use federal money to gather up such individuals and lock them away in big hospitals as was the favored practice during the last century. [Continue Reading...]
As the largest single spending category in the state budget, North Carolina’s public school system has been hard hit by the last several years of budget cuts, shedding thousands of teaching jobs as well as thousands of other educational staff crucial not only to running a school, but also ensuring that students succeed. Since state [Continue Reading...]
The recently enacted state budget will have severe and negative impacts on the state’s economy, according to a new report released by the North Carolina Budget & Tax Center. Specifically, the report finds that the budget will kill thousands of jobs across the state, ranging from the loss of 1,624 jobs in the [Continue Reading...]
