In survey after survey, North Carolinians have told pollsters that the Number One priority of state and national policymakers should be creating jobs. Yet the strategies for creating jobs championed by those policymakers are frequently at odds with what actually works. In North Carolina, leaders from both major political parties often tout tax [Continue Reading...]
As the world impatiently awaits a statement of purpose and list of demands from the Occupy movements across the country and world, former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory perhaps unintentionally and unwittingly framed it perfectly in a television interview last week when he said “You can’t allow the people to take over.” How telling [Continue Reading...]
The Occupy Wall Street movement demonstrates that the United States still has a Left, despite recent electoral misfortunes, and its weaker political infrastructure. The American Left does not own a television network. It is out-gunned by the sheer number of conservative talk radio shows and stations. Conservative think tanks are less intellectual than [Continue Reading...]
Though the Great Recession technically ended two years ago, North Carolina is still feeling its devastating impact. A classic case in point is the state’s Unemployment Insurance system. This month, the state was forced to pay out $78 million as its first interest payment toward the $2.5 billion it borrowed from the federal [Continue Reading...]
More than a decade ago, North Carolina’s system for providing services to individuals with mental health needs, developmental disabilities and addictive disease was deeply troubled. Allegations of fraud, mismanagement and conflicted governance signaled poor accountability mechanisms. In response, the General Assembly directed the state Auditor to investigate the situation. In April 2000, the [Continue Reading...]
Editor’s note: Tuesday afternoon Bank of America issued a press release saying that after “listening to our customers very closely” it no longer intends to implement a debit usage fee. I have been a Bank of America customer since 1996. The bank has been a constant during my 15 years of moving through [Continue Reading...]
It’s hard to read or watch the news these days without coming across at least one story that centers around the economic hardships facing our nation – rising unemployment; falling housing prices; climbing national debt, which now sits at more than $14 trillion. And the U.S. infamously spends a larger portion of its [Continue Reading...]
In June, Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard Manning issued a decision in the long-running Leandro litigation over the state’s public education system. The judge found that the General Assembly’s 20% cuts to pre-kindergarten services for at-risk students violated the state’s constitution. Manning’s directive was quite clear: “The State of North Carolina shall [Continue Reading...]
On October 1, 2011, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue proclaimed October 2011 Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Less than five days after the proclamation was issued, news media outlets reported that a man from Havelock shot his wife and assaulted one of his minor daughters during a “heated argument.” While the media outlets described [Continue Reading...]
It seems that a middle-class life is increasingly out of reach for many North Carolinians. New data from the U.S. Census Bureau released last week shows that the state’s poverty rate bumped up to 17.5 percent in 2010, a 22 percent increase since 2007 when the Great Recession started. The 368,614 North Carolinians [Continue Reading...]
We know that healthy children learn better, grow stronger and become more successful adults. Unfortunately, children in eastern North Carolina have traditionally suffered from disproportionately high rates of obesity, infant mortality, smoking and other health-related problems. Rather than closing the gap between eastern North Carolina and the rest of the state, the 2011-13 [Continue Reading...]
Journalist Don Peck has just written one of the most important books yet published on the Great Recession. Entitled “Pinched: How the Great Recession has narrowed our futures and what we can do about it,” the book does not delve into what caused the downturn, like the countless other books already published on [Continue Reading...]
It’s election season in North Carolina. Across our state some 500 cities and towns are holding local elections in the coming weeks with 1000 public offices up for grabs. Additionally, there are 20 school districts electing school boards, eight bond referenda, five county wide tax referenda and two municipal incorporation referenda all on [Continue Reading...]
The workers who harvest North Carolina’s sweet potatoes and tobacco are some of the lowest-paid and least protected workers in the state. They routinely face exposure to intense heat, long hours, back-breaking labor and dangerous pesticides and equipment. In general, farm work is among the most dangerous occupations in our state. And it [Continue Reading...]
For better or worse, newborns don’t come with a “how to” manual. And while there are plenty of books out there on topics ranging from potty-training to nursing, guidance on navigating the health care and education systems is often hard to find. Unfortunately, a series of state budget cuts, each one compounding the [Continue Reading...]
