New state budget continues to underfund crucial public investments

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September 26, 2014
In 2015 Fiscal Year State Budget, Falling Behind in NC, NC Budget and Tax Center

This week the Budget & Tax Center released a new report on North Carolina’s 2015 fiscal year budget. While other states across the country are beginning to reverse the worst cuts made during the Great Recession, North Carolina continues to underfund crucial public investments in order to pay for tax cuts that took effect this year. Lawmakers failed to provide a high-quality education for all children, protect natural resources, support community-based economic development, or provide adequate health and human services to North Carolina residents.

Under the final budget, state investments are 6.6 percent below pre-recession levels five years into the official economic recovery. The new budget for the 2015 fiscal year is the 7th budget enacted since the Great Recession hit, and North Carolina has yet to bounce back to its pre-recession investment level. This is in contrast to spending during previous economic recoveries – spending did not dip after the 1981 and 2001 recoveries and state lawmakers restored investments to the levels that were in place when the 1990 recession hit within three years. Read more

First in Flight from the EITC: Heather’s Story (VIDEO)

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September 5, 2014
In Falling Behind in NC, NC Budget and Tax Center

Lawmakers let the state Earned Income Tax Credit expire at the end of 2013, making North Carolina the first state in nearly 30 years to eliminate this proven anti-poverty tool. The state EITC helps promote shared economic prosperity for all North Carolinians. It goes only to working people with modest incomes, offering extra support to pay for basic necessities.

In a new video from the series “North Carolina: First in Flight from the EITC,” Heather Partridge talks about how the state EITC has helped her family. Heather lives with her husband and three daughters in Gibsonville, where she works at Hardee’s and earns $7.55 an hour – just barely above the state minimum wage of $7.25. In past years, the EITC has helped Heather pay for everyday goods for her children as well as pay off debt.  Read more

A higher minimum wage AND reinstating state EITC good for the economy

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September 4, 2014
In Falling Behind in NC, NC Budget and Tax Center

As North Carolina continues to recover from the Great Recession, most of the jobs that have been added pay low wages, making affording even basic necessities difficult for many hard-working North Carolinians. Raising the state minimum wage and reinstating a state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) are two policy tools that North Carolina state lawmakers can use to help boost wages, widen the path out of poverty, and reduce income inequality, a report released this week by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) highlights.

Wages for the least paid workers are no higher than they were 40 years ago, the CBPP report highlights. Yet evidence shows that lifting the income of families earning low wages provides a range of benefits, including improved learning and educational attainment and higher future earnings in adulthood for low-income young children. Furthermore, raising the minimum wage and an enhanced state EITC together works to put families and individuals on a path to financial stability and self-sufficiency. Read more

Final budget puts North Carolina on fiscally irresponsible path as state falls further behind

By
August 7, 2014
In Falling Behind in NC, NC Budget and Tax Center

Governor McCrory signed a final budget into law for the current 2015 fiscal year, which runs from July 2014 through June 2015, this morning. The $21.1 billion budget includes new spending initiatives – largely pay raises for teachers and state employees – but fails to include additional revenue to sustain this spending in the long-term. Contrary to fueling North Carolina’s economic comeback, as Governor McCrory claims, the final budget continues to fund core public services at diminished levels, well below pre-recession levels, and compromises the ability of the state to get ahead and prepare for the future.  Moreover, it puts North Carolina on a fiscally irresponsible path that will continue to create budget challenges in the years ahead, largely as a result of the tax plan that was little debated and discussed in the final budget.

North Carolina faces a revenue challenge, and actions taken within the final budget make this reality clear. The final budget signed by the Governor spends every available dollar and uses dollars from last year’s budget as a result of the Governor requiring agencies to cut their respective budgets. No funding is available to build up the state’s Savings Reserve fund, which is meant to position the state to weather a future economic downturn. Furthermore, the budget relies on one-time funding sources that, once depleted, cannot be replenished with such low revenue and shifts funding for core public investments such as K-12 education to lottery receipts and early childhood programming to federal block grants.

Such budget decisions are driven largely by the tax plan the governor signed into law last year, which significantly reduces revenue available for public investments. Revised analysis by the General Assembly’s Fiscal Research Division estimates that the income tax rate cuts in the plan will cost at least $200 million more annually than initially expected – more than $1 billion less in annual revenue once the plan is fully implemented. The Governor and state policymakers failed to account for this reality in the final budget, which means that, absent new revenue, more budget cuts to core public services are likely to occur in future years as the tax plan continues to be implemented. Another round of tax cuts is set to occur in January 2015.

Under the final budget signed by the Governor, state spending remains 6.6 percent below pre-recession levels (see chart below). Read more

The Earned Income Tax Credit matters to NC families

By
July 8, 2014
In Falling Behind in NC

If you work hard and play by the rules, you deserve a chance to get ahead. This is why the Earned Income Tax Credit was invented: to help families with low-paying jobs make ends meet.

Unfortunately, North Carolina is the first state in 30 years to eliminate its Earned Income Tax Credit. This move abandoned a bunch of our neighbors, people with stories like Kara’s:

There is no more stark illustration of why tax policy matters. With NC job growth coming primarily in low-wage industries, we’re going to need the Earned Income Tax Credit — and other measures that work for working people — more than ever.

 

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