Take Action

Congress is threatening to cut programs that are essential to people in North Carolina, and Medicaid is one of the programs potentially on the chopping block. Millions of North Carolinians are on Medicaid—including over 1 million children, seniors, pregnant people, and people with disabilities, alongside 615,000 of our friends and neighbors who have received health coverage through Medicaid expansion. However, the NC Justice Center is committed to fighting back.

You can help by calling your Congress members and telling them to keep their hands off Medicaid. We have developed a detailed, step-by-step toolkit and phone script with talking points you can use to make your calls.

Mugshots, once a routine aspect of law enforcement, have now become a tool for exploitation and injustice. These images, meant to serve a specific purpose, are being misused by unscrupulous companies for financial gain at the expense of people’s reputations and livelihoods. We believe it’s time to put an end to this practice and ensure a fair and just approach to the dissemination of booking photos.

We are proud to support North Carolina House Bill 778, a crucial step towards safeguarding the rights and dignity of individuals who have faced the criminal justice system. This bill seeks to regulate the dissemination of booking photos to the media, ensuring that private companies cannot exploit this sensitive information for financial gain.

In North Carolina, a driver’s license is automatically suspended for traffic debt that is not paid or resolved by a set deadline or for missing a court date. More than 1.2 million drivers in North Carolina have suspended driver’s licenses for unpaid traffic fines and fees or missing a court date. Approximately 95 percent of North Carolinians drive to work. Therefore, not having a driver’s license can create barriers to obtaining and maintaining meaningful employment. It can also make it hard to obtain affordable housing, attend doctor’s appointments, or care for family members. Low-income families and families of color are disproportionately affected by driver’s license suspensions based on traffic debt.

Where people begin in life should not determine where they end up. When we trap already under-resourced people in further debt, it undermines their ability to advance socially and economically over the course of their lifetimes.

Sign this petition to show your support for ending debt-based driver’s license suspension in North Carolina!

The North Carolina Justice Center with the Raising Wages NC and NC Families Care Coalitions are joining forces to hold a day of action at the NC General Assembly in Raleigh on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 to advocate for basic rights for workers, including paid sick days, paid family and medical leave and raising the minimum wage.

Poverty is the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S.Currently, 34 states and D.C. have raised their minimum wages above the federal minimum wage. Meanwhile, NC workers have been stuck with a wage floor of $7.25 an hour and a $2.13 tipped wage since 2008. As the cost of living continues to rise, our communities cannot survive on these poverty wages; the 2025 Living Income Standard for a household with one adult and one child is $36.30 an hour. For our businesses and economy, raising the minimum wage boosts consumer spending, reduces costly turnover, and improves productivity and customer service.  It’s time for the NC legislature to raise the wage and to put an end to subminimum wages and exemptions for historically marginalized workers.

For 18 years, a bill has been introduced in the state legislature to allow working people to earn paid sick time. This common sense policy is already in place in many other parts of the country, benefitting working people, their families, employers and the public health, but here in NC, the bill hasn’t even received a committee hearing. During the pandemic the consequences of inaction became clear, as states with paid sick days laws in place suffered far fewer cases of COVID-19 than other states because sick frontline workers were supported to stay home and recover rather than putting their coworkers and customers at risk. Working North Carolinians deserve to recover from illness, care for sick loved ones and access preventative healthcare.

Paid family and medical leave is a norm in many other parts of the country and the world, but in NC, the vast majority of working people have no access to paid leave. While some workers have access to unpaid leave from the FMLA, many are ineligible, and many more can’t afford to take time off without pay while healing or caring for family. Whether welcoming a new baby into the world, recovering from cancer treatment or caring for a dying elder, we shouldn’t have to win the boss lottery in order to take time to care. 

Passing these basic workplace policies in North Carolina will represent a huge step towards eliminating poverty by better supporting working people to care for their families, creating more good jobs, leveling the playing field for businesses, putting money back in the economy, and building thriving communities.

El Centro de Justicia de Carolina del Norte con las coaliciones Raising Wages NC y NC Families Care están uniendo fuerzas para celebrar un día de acción en la Asamblea General de Carolina del Norte en Raleigh el martes 25 de marzo de 2025 para defender los derechos básicos de los trabajadores, incluidos los días de enfermedad pagados, las licencias familiares y médicas pagas y el aumento del salario mínimo.

Actualmente, 34 estados y el Distrito de Columbia han aumentado sus salarios mínimos. Mientras tanto, los trabajadores de Carolina del Norte se han quedado estancados con un salario mínimo de $7,25 por hora y un salario con propina de $2,13 desde 2008. A medida que el costo de vida continúa aumentando, estos salarios ya no son suficientes; el estándar de ingreso vital para 2025 para un hogar con un adulto y un niño es de $36,30 por hora. Para nuestras empresas y nuestra economía, aumentar el salario mínimo impulsa el gasto de los consumidores, reduce la costosa rotación de personal y mejora la productividad y el servicio al cliente.  Es hora de que la legislatura de Carolina del Norte aumente el salario y ponga fin a los salarios submínimos y las exenciones para los trabajadores históricamente marginados.

Durante 18 años, se ha presentado un proyecto de ley en la legislatura estatal para permitir que los trabajadores obtengan días de baja por enfermedad remunerados. Esta política de sentido común ya está en vigor en muchas otras partes del país, beneficiando a los trabajadores, sus familias, los empleadores y la salud pública, pero aquí en Carolina del Norte, el proyecto de ley ni siquiera ha sido objeto de una audiencia en comisión. Durante la pandemia, las consecuencias de la inacción se hicieron evidentes, ya que los estados con leyes de días de baja por enfermedad remunerados en vigor sufrieron muchos menos casos de COVID-19 que otros estados porque los trabajadores de primera línea enfermos recibieron apoyo para quedarse en casa y recuperarse en lugar de poner en riesgo a sus compañeros de trabajo y clientes. Los trabajadores de Carolina del Norte merecen recuperarse de la enfermedad, cuidar a sus seres queridos enfermos y acceder a atención médica preventiva. 

En muchas otras partes del país y del mundo, la licencia familiar y médica remunerada es una norma, pero en Carolina del Norte, la gran mayoría de los trabajadores no tienen acceso a una licencia remunerada. Si bien algunos trabajadores tienen acceso a una licencia sin goce de sueldo gracias a la FMLA, muchos no son elegibles y muchos más no pueden darse el lujo de tomarse un tiempo libre sin goce de sueldo mientras se recuperan o cuidan de su familia. Ya sea que estemos dando la bienvenida a un nuevo bebé al mundo, recuperándonos de un tratamiento contra el cáncer o cuidando a un anciano moribundo, no deberíamos tener que ganar la lotería del jefe para tener tiempo para cuidar a alguien.

La aprobación de estas políticas laborales básicas en Carolina del Norte representará un gran paso hacia la eliminación de la pobreza al brindar un mejor apoyo a los trabajadores para que cuiden de sus familias, crear más empleos de calidad, nivelar el campo de juego para las empresas, devolver dinero a la economía y construir comunidades prósperas.