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Posted by : Wednesday, October 2, 2013 1 Comment In Uncategorized

A new release from the NC Justice Center:

A boom in low-wage jobs is the leading factor contributing to the drop in unemployment across most of the state’s metros, according to today’s jobs report from the N.C. Division of Employment Security.

Although unemployment has dropped in all 14 of North Carolina’s metro areas over the last year, most of these job growth has occurred in the lowest wage sector—Leisure & Hospitality. Unfortunately, this industry pays $8.30 an hour, more than $12 below the statewide average—suggesting that most metros are seeing the biggest growth opportunities in ultra-low wage jobs.

Over the last year, Leisure & Hospitality was either the fastest or second fastest growing industry in 10 metro areas. These metros include:

Posted by : Saturday, September 21, 2013 19 Comments In NC Budget and Tax Center

North Carolina’s unemployment rate dropped to 8.7 percent in August, according to the latest jobs report from the Division of Employment Security, but this “improvement” is largely the result of a mathematical quirk, and masks deeper, long-term problems in the state’s labor market—most notably, the lack of available jobs for unemployed workers.

While the number of unemployed people dropped last month, this is only because jobless workers gave up on their job search and dropped out of the labor force, not because they actually found jobs. In August, Read More

Posted by : Tuesday, September 17, 2013 2 Comments In NC Budget and Tax Center

The federal Pell Grant Program serves students from very poor families, according to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). However, the ability of the Pell Grant to cover the cost of higher education has declined over time and will continue to in the years ahead. This student aid program was created in 1972 to help improve the access of low-income students to postsecondary education and is the largest federal student aid grant program. For 2012-13, nearly 9 million students across the United States received Pell grants at a cost of $32.4 billion dollars.

The report presents Congress with a range of options for potentially making changes to the federal Pell Grant Program. Eligibility and Pell grant award amounts are determined using various formulas and thresholds. Simply put, the program determines how much a family is expected to contribute towards the cost of a student’s postsecondary education – the estimated family contribution (EFC) – and based on this (EFC), a student may qualify for a Pell grant. The maximum Pell grant award is $5,645 for the 2013-2014 academic year.

The CBO report includes an abundance of data and information regarding the Pell Grant Program; however, the big takeaways highlight the type of students the program serves and the ability of the program to promote college affordability. Read More

Posted by : Monday, September 9, 2013 2 Comments In Uncategorized

On Friday, Chris Mai of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities documented some remarkable numbers related to American support for public education. As her chart below shows, North Carolina’s dwindling support parallels a disturbing national trend:

 ”Local governments added 20,000 education jobs in the month of August, the Labor Department reported today.  That’s good news, but schools remain in a big hole from the recession:  local school districts still have 297,000 fewer jobs than in August 2008 (see chart).

Education cuts chart

This means that, even as K-12 enrollment has risen — by 800,000 students between the fall of 2008 and fall of 2013, according to the Education Department — schools have fewer teachers, librarians, principals, guidance counselors, nurses, and other staff to help them.

Instead of setting our students up for success at the start of a new school year, we’re giving them less support than just a few years ago.

 

Posted by : Thursday, August 29, 2013In Uncategorized

Did you manage to listen to the speeches by President Obama and others yesterday for the 50th commemoration of the March on Washington? You can hit the highlights of the speeches here and also go back in history and watch Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s original speech here.

How much do you know about the March on Washington? You can test yourself with this quiz here on the Religion News Services. Be warned, it’s tough. I only got 40 percent right, which I’m pretty sure means I failed and need to spend more time learning about this enormously important moment in our American history.

Here’s something else I didn’t know about King’s famous speech. It was copyrighted. So, that means that the Youtube link I posted above may be in violation of copyright laws. I probably should have paid more attention in the copyright and fair use classes I took when I was in journalism school (though Youtube, Twitter and Facebook weren’t even “things” way back when I was in school.)

Speaking of journalism and degrees, I guess, in the interest of full disclosure, I should also point out that I’m one of those journalists without an economics degree that Gov. McCrory referred to in Asheville this week. Looks like I have plenty of company, though. WRAL pointed out that McCrory also doesn’t have an economics degree and his jobs and economy advisor (who makes $110,000 a year a few years out of law school) doesn’t have one either. Read to the end of this AP article for more about that.

Back to the March on Washington. The iconic images from the day 50 years ago were largely in black and white, and there’s an interesting display on NPR of what that day’s photos would have looked like in color here. It hits me in a different way, and reinforces the fact that 50 years was not all that long ago. What did you think?

Want to know the story behind other iconic images? The Newseum in Washington, D.C. has a feature that tells the photographers’ stories about several Pulitzer Prize winning photographs taken at events like the Kent State shootings and Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Click on the images to learn more.

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