 In last week’s unemployment numbers released by the Division of Employment Security, North Carolina’s workers received confirmation of what they probably already knew—the labor market continues to stagnate under the weight of insufficient job creation and the lack of available jobs is sufficient numbers to bring down the unemployment rate in a meaningful way. More...
| Issue 18, No. 2: Income Inequality Grows in North Carolina, Likely Slowing Economic Growth |
 Income inequality—the extent to which income is distributed unevenly—is widespread and growing in North Carolina and the nation. Americans are experiencing historically high levels of income inequality as this chart shows. Since the late 1960s, income inequality in America has been indisputably trending upward. Census data show that a wide income gap exists in North Carolina, with the top and bottom quintiles of the income distribution separated, on average, by an annual income of $144,246. More... |
| Issue 18, No. 1: Climbing jobs deficit presents clear need for policy solutions |
 The new jobs numbers released by the NC Division of Employment Security last week confirmed what North Carolina’s workers have known from first-hand experience and which now presents one of the defining challenges facing policy makers—the state is just not experiencing enough job creation to keep pace with the demands of its growing population. More...
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| Issue 17, No. 4: 2000s-era Economic Recovery Too Weak to Bring Down Poverty To Pre-Recession Levels |
 During the 2000s, the North Carolina economy experienced unusually short business cycles that produced historically unprecedented changes in the poverty rate. For the first time ever, the poverty rate during one recession failed to recover to pre-downturn levels before the start of the next recession. More...
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Issue 17, No. 3:
Government programs are keeping millions of Americans out of poverty |
 Last week the Census Bureau released data from the Current Population Survey which was in the field in 2011 and tracks a number of key measures of economic well-being including poverty and household income. One of the important pieces of the analysis that is possible through this survey is to measure the impact of our investments in government programs aimed at fighting poverty. The data show that these programs are keeping millions of Americans out of poverty. More...
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Issue 17, No. 2:
North Carolina experiences decade-long erosion of high-wage industrial base, boom in low-wage jobs |
 Over the last decade, North Carolina’s economy experienced an accelerated transition away from high-wage industries like manufacturing towards low-wage industries like accommodations and food services. During the ten years between 2001 and 2011, the state shed almost 380,000 jobs, almost 75% of which were concentrated in high-wage industries paying above the Living Income Standard ($23.47), a market-based measure of how much a working family of four must earn in order to meet basic expenses. More... |
Issue 17, No. 1:
The “Lost Decade” and the State of Working North Carolina |
 Workers play a keystone role in North Carolina’s economy, as both producers and consumers of goods and services. Improvements in the well-being of workers and their families are requisite for a strong economic recovery. Unfortunately, North Carolina working families lost financial ground and experienced diminished opportunities through the “lost” decade of the 2000s. More... |
Issue 16, No. 4:
North Carolina experiences decade of growing wage inequality |
Over the past 30 years, North Carolina has experienced growing wage inequality, with income gains concentrated among high-wage earners. North Carolinians in the bottom 20% of the income distribution have seen their wages remain flat while those in the top 20% have seen their wages grow by 32 percent. The result is a growing gap between high- and low-wage earners. In 1981, the gap between the top 20% and bottom 20% was $10.44 per hour but by 2011 the gap had grown to $15.85. More...
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Issue 16, No. 3:
North Carolina’s jobs deficit grows to 546,000 in July |
In another sign of North Carolina’s struggling labor market, the state’s unemployment rate rose from 9.4% to 9.6% last month, spurring a rise in the state’s jobs deficit from June to July, and signaling the possibility of a late-summer stall in the economy’s recovery from the Great Recession. More...
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Issue 16, No. 2:
Government layoffs increase unemployment |
Recent trends in the national labor market demonstrate the harm inflicted on the economy by cutting government spending and laying off government employees in the middle of an already challenging economic recovery. Just as with private sector layoffs, government layoffs increase the number of people out of work. And given that there are already nearly three times the number of people looking for work than there are job openings, these public sector layoffs only serve to increase overall unemployment. More...
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Issue 16, No. 1:
North Carolina’s suburbs see dramatic increase in poverty over 2000s |
Poverty in North Carolina is commonly associated with the concrete jungles of the state’s inner-cities or isolated rural communities in the mountains, the Piedmont, and the Northeastern Black Belt. And although poverty is certainly a reality for far too many of the state’s urban and rural communities, it is the areas in between—North Carolina’s suburban neighborhoods—that have seen the most explosive growth in poverty during the first decade of the twenty-first century. More...
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In the debate over job creation, it is critically important for policy makers to correctly diagnose the major drivers of North Carolina’s persistently high unemployment rate in order to develop the most appropriate policy solutions. Recent research from the Budget and Tax Center makes it clear that the state’s lagging job creation compared to neighboring states is due in large part to competitiveness challenges in very specific, declining industries, rather than due to problems with competitiveness of the overall economy. More... 
In recent policy debates, the crucial fact that work alone does not provide sufficient income to lift families out of poverty has often been overlooked. In fact, more than two out of three low-income families were working in 2010, a slight dip from years when three out of four low-income families in North Carolina were working. Critically, while employment growth in the mid-2000s slightly increased the number of low-income families who were working, this job growth failed to deliver meaningful economic gains for low-income workers. More...
Despite recent minor improvement in North Carolina’s unemployment rate, persistent joblessness is still an ongoing challenge facing the state’s policy makers—especially when compared to the steadily improving national jobs picture. Much of the troubling divergence between the improving national unemployment rate and the more stagnant state unemployment rate is due to the fact that North Carolina suffered deeper job losses during the recession than did the nation as a whole. More...
In another unusual feature of the current business cycle, North Carolina experienced net positive economic growth over the past five years, but that growth has failed to translate into significant job creation. An examination of North Carolina's recent record of both Gross Domestic Product growth and employment growth over the past five years shows a troubling divergence between these two formerly interconnected trends—the economy is growing, but jobs are not. More...
More than three years into the economic recovery, it is clear that communities of color are being left behind. After bearing the brunt of the Great Recession’s job losses, African American workers are continuing to lag behind their non-minority counterparts in North Carolina and in the nation as a whole. Within North Carolina, the unemployment rate for African Americans remained more than 8 percentage points above the state average at the end of 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More...
Forty-four months since the formal end of the Great Recession in June 2009, North Carolina’s labor market continues to struggle with sluggish job creation and persistently high unemployment. But the most troubling trend facing the state’s economy is the long-term loss of middle-wage jobs—mostly in the goods-producing sector—and their steady replacement with jobs in low-wage service industries. According to new unemployment data, the state’s rate has remained stagnant over the last year. More...
Recently released unemployment numbers from the N.C. Division of Employment Security have reinforced what many of the state’s workers already know first-hand—North Carolina’s labor market is continuing to struggle. At the same time, however, the state has seen modest—but real—gains in comparison to the rest of the nation over the course of 2012. According to the latest Local Area Unemployment Statistics release, the national unemployment rate has improved significantly over the last year. More... 
As tax filing season rolls around, many NC families and communities across the state will benefit from the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The federal EITC, designed to reward work and offset federal payroll and income taxes paid families earning low wages, is a powerful tool for poverty reduction. In '08 North Carolina established a state credit worth 5 percent of the federal credit. The tax credit helps address the upside-down nature of the state’s tax system. More...
As the General Assembly prepares to take final action on unemployment insurance reforms, December’s jobs report from the NC Division of Employment Security reinforces the bleak outlook for North Carolina’s labor market and the fundamental lack of available jobs to meet the needs of unemployed workers. Taken together, these realities have profound consequences for the unemployed if policy makers adopt unemployment insurance reforms that significantly scale back benefits for jobless workers. More...
The economic recovery that began in mid-2009 has failed to make progress against poverty in North Carolina. In 2011, the number of people living below the federal poverty level topped out at almost 1.7 million North Carolinians, a figure that continues to remain well-above pre-recession levels. But the reality of poverty for many North Carolinians may be even starker than the topline poverty rate suggests, given that statewide estimates tend to mask differences in poverty and economic hardship across different regions in the state. More... 
As policymakers consider reforms to the state’s unemployment insurance system, it is critical to address the ongoing sluggishness in North Carolina’s labor market, sluggishness driven largely by the fact that workers outnumber available job openings by almost 3-to-1. As a result, one of the central challenges facing North Carolina’s employment growth and economic recovery is the fundamental lack of open, available jobs. More...
In recent weeks, lawmakers in North Carolina have proposed a number of tax reform plans that would abolish the corporate and personal income taxes and shift the state’s revenue base to a consumption tax. In doing so, these proposals would immediately eliminate 60% of the state’s annual revenue, almost certainly requiring significant increases in the sales tax or deep spending cuts in order to be “revenue-neutral”—that is, raise the same amount of revenue as under the current system. More...
Income inequality is a growing problem in North Carolina. Census data show that a wide income gap exists in North Carolina, with the top fifth of households holding more income than the bottom 80 percent (lowest 4-fifths) of households combined. Since 2007, each fifth of the income tier has experienced shrinking household incomes, but none more so than the households in the bottom fifth. Unfortunately, policies aimed at reforming our state’s tax system reform could well make the growing income gap worse. More...
As policy makers debate reforming the state’s unemployment insurance system, the central reality for North Carolina’s workforce is the absence of available jobs. Along with an unemployment rate that remains stubbornly stuck over 9 percent, the full scope of this policy challenge is best captured in the state’s jobs deficit—the number of jobs the state needs to create to replace those lost to the 2007-2009 economic downturn and keep up with population growth. More...
Despite its long-standing reputation as a progressive Southern state, North Carolina has experienced a growing divide between rich and poor over the past 20 years. While the wealthiest 20 percent of households saw significant income growth during the 2000s, low- and moderate-income North Carolinians failed to benefit from the most recent economic expansion and actually saw their incomes fall over the same period. More...
On the evening of November 6, North Carolina’s election debates will be over, but the most critical policy debates of 2013 and 2014 will just be beginning. At the top of the state’s policy agenda will undoubtedly be the state’s struggling economic recovery and persistently high unemployment rate. A symptom of both of these troubling trends is the long-term growth in the state’s jobs deficit—the number of jobs the state needs to create in order to replace the 223,700 jobs lost since the Great Recession began in December 2007. More...
Given the state’s persistently high unemployment rate and growing jobs deficit, North Carolina faces a short-term challenge of creating enough job opportunities to match the number of workers seeking employment and the long-term challenge of ensuring this job creation occurs in those industries most likely to experience growth and pay decent wages. Unfortunately, just one-quarter of the state’s employment base is concentrated in industries that are either growing or poised for growth in the future. More...
In last week’s unemployment numbers released by the Division of Employment Security, North Carolina’s workers received confirmation of what they probably already knew—the labor market continues to stagnate under the weight of insufficient job creation and the lack of available jobs is sufficient numbers to bring down the unemployment rate in a meaningful way. More...
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