A new national report released by the Urban Institute and First Focus shows that 1 in 10 children in North Carolina lived in a family with at least one unemployed parent in 2012, a percentage that has more than doubled since the start of the Great Recession in 2007.

As the report highlights, the effects of parental job loss on children can be severe. Economic stress links to parents’ responses to their children and children’s wellbeing. And studies of unemployment and family income show that poverty increases sharply among the long-term unemployed. The adverse effects of children living in poverty can last well into adulthood.

The report also points to the importance of the safety net.

Unemployment insurance can cushion the adverse effects of unemployment – and help stabilize the economy during economic downturns – by providing families with cash benefits to offset some of their lost wages.

Unfortunately for North Carolina’s jobless workers and their children, the General Assembly has decided to slash unemployment benefits Read More…

President Obama’s focus on the minimum wage as a key strategy for spurring economic growth by putting money back in the pockets of working people has sparked a long-overdue national conversation about raising the minimum wage. The Justice Center’s Workers’ Rights Project has released a report analyzing the impact of a raise on North Carolina’s working families and the state’s still struggling economy.

North Carolina’s minimum wage tracks the federal standard of $7.25 per hour, which means that a full-time minimum wage worker earns roughly $15,080 per year. A conservative measure of actual family costs for one adult and one child in North Carolina requires an income of more than twice this amount. And the price of food, gas and utilities has steadily climbed while the value of the minimum wage has not.

President Obama proposed raising the minimum wage to $9.00 per hour and the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, introduced a few weeks after the President’s State of the Union speech, calls for a raise to $10.10 per hour by 2015 (and notably also calls for a raise in the extremely low tipped minimum wage of $2.13). Both proposals would affect approximately half a million workers in North Carolina. Contrary to stereotypes of minimum wage workers, the vast majority of these workers are adults over 20 years old.

And a raise would disproportionately impact women in North Carolina, Read More…

If you are planning on going out to eat tonight, love the one you’re with, but don’t forget to thank those hard working women and men who prepare and serve your meal.

ROC-United held its annual Day of Action yesterday on 2.13 to highlight the low tipped minimum wage of $2.13 as well as the lack of access most restaurant workers have to crucial benefits like health insurance and earned paid sick days. Co-founder of ROC, and author of the just released book Behind the Kitchen Door, Saru Jayaraman noted:

Our food comes at great expense to the workers who provide it. The biggest workforce in America can’t put food on the table except when they go to work.

While it’s not a surprise that the vast majority of restaurant workers don’t have access to health insurance through their employers, it’s a particularly poignant fact for North Carolinians these days.

The median annual wage of those working in food prep/serving occupations is about $18K, Read More…

This morning, a bill to overhaul the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) system will be heard in the House Finance Committee.  Fundamental to the argument for the radical overhaul of the system is that our program is out of line with the systems in other states.

A review of state programs, however, shows that North Carolina’s program is currently in the middle of the pack. The overhaul will move us to the back of the pack on many measures, and on others completely off the charts.

• North Carolina’s current maximum duration is 26 weeks, the same as 43 other states. The proposed duration is a sliding scale from 12 to 20 weeks. No other state has a sliding scale for the minimum number of weeks while only two states (Florida and Georgia) have a sliding scale for the maximum number of weeks. Read more about the impacts of the proposed sliding scale.
• North Carolina’s current average weekly benefit amount ranks 23rd compared to other states. The proposal to cut the maximum and to use the last two quarters to calculate the benefit amount would push us to the bottom of the list.
• North Carolina’s current maximum benefit amount is indexed to the average weekly wage – this is how most states calculate the maximum. The proposal to have a flat maximum of $350 per week would push us to the bottom 15 states. Read more about the effect of cutting the maximum benefit amount here.

The temporary wage replacement for workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own helps workers and their families meet their basic needs and stabilizes the economy. North Carolina currently has the 5th highest unemployment rate in the country. Now is not the time to push our program to the back of the pack. Take a look at the facts. Take action here.