New poll shows strong support for election reform and concerns about casino gambling, fracking, hospital practices, repeal of consumer protections and impact of Amendment One. With state lawmakers returning to Raleightomorrow afternoon to begin the 2012 legislative session, NC Policy Watch is happy to announce the release of the latest edition of its [Continue Reading...]
The General Assembly will soon put together their FY2012-13 continuation budget, in which lawmakers make changes to the second year of the biennial state budget that was passed in the spring of 2011. Any changes to the state budget are based on the availability of revenue (whether there is more [Continue Reading...]
As the last federal recovery funds supporting public education in North Carolina run out, a larger share of responsibility for funding public education must shift back to state government, says a new report. In accepting this responsibility, lawmakers must recommit to maintaining and increasing the capacity of North Carolina’s schools to fairly and [Continue Reading...]
Personal income tax is integral to supporting the state’s investment in public schools, public safety agencies, public health programs, and infrastructure development, according to a report released this morning. North Carolina’s personal income tax represents half of the revenue collected by the state each year – $10 billion in 2011 – according to [Continue Reading...]
Recent considerations by the NC General Assembly’s House Select Committee on Early Childhood Education Improvement to explore privatizing North Carolina’s Pre-K program could severely limit access to the program in rural, high-poverty areas, a new report cautions. Using county-level data on the location of Pre-K program slots, rural and urban designations of counties, [Continue Reading...]
In recent days, a marketing campaign launched by the Pope Civitas Institute and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation began claiming that last year’s state budget – which cut taxes on the wealthiest while slashing funds for vital public investments – actually increased teacher positions in North Carolina. The following facts from the NC [Continue Reading...]
North Carolina’s Pre-K program and its “at-risk” income eligibility standard The following media release accompanied a new report released this morning by the N.C. Budget and Tax Center: MEDIA RELEASE: Legislative changes would limit at-risk children’s access to NC Pre-K, harm economy in the long-run Lowering income eligibility threshold of NC Pre-K would [Continue Reading...]
North Carolina’s public structures and systems – such as its public schools, courts, and parks – have been badly damaged by the Great Recession, high unemployment, and an outdated revenue system, according to a new report released Thursday morning. Without a strategy to improve revenue collections, the state’s public investments in [Continue Reading...]
North Carolina’s rural communities are far more susceptible to the impact of state and federal budget decisions, according to a new report released Friday morning. Rural counties are significantly less well-positioned their urban counterparts to fund core governmental operations, according to a report by the Budget & Tax Center – a [Continue Reading...]
The coming political year: What will happen? What should happen? It looks like 2012 is going to be one heck of a year in North Carolina politics and public policy — maybe one for the ages. Between Governor Perdue’s decision not to seek a second term, the General Assembly’s “midnight madness” fiasco, a statewide vote [Continue Reading...]
The state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is available to low and moderate-income workers and is equal to 5 percent of the federal EITC. It is designed to encourage and reward work as well as offset the substantial state and local tax contributions of these workers. At a critical time for working families and the [Continue Reading...]
The North Carolina Budget & Tax Center, a project of the NC Justice Center, released a new report Wednesday detailing how 10 counties were “persistently poor” in 2000, meaning that they had high poverty rates every year for three decades. Persistent poverty is defined by both the percentage of people living in poverty [Continue Reading...]
Documented wage theft cost North Carolina workers and their communities an estimated $4.7 million in 2011, according to a new report released Monday. The North Carolina Justice Center report finds that when an employer does not pay a worker for the work she or he has performed, families struggle to make ends meet, [Continue Reading...]
The North Carolina General Assembly should reform the state’s economic development incentive policies to ensure the creation of stable, quality jobs for the state’s workers, according to a new report released Thursday by the NC Budget & Tax Center. These reforms are especially critical given North Carolina’s high unemployment rate and the high-profile [Continue Reading...]
State investments in core services such as education, health, and public safety are projected to reach a 40-year low over the next two years, a new report finds. After decades of stability, state funding for core services – as a share of North Carolinians’ incomes – has fallen drastically, according to a
