Prosperity Watch
| Issue 26, No. 3: Employment Growth Continues to Bypass Rural North Carolina |
 Nearly 4 years since the formal end of the Great Recession, rural North Carolina is experiencing a very different recovery than the state’s urban areas. Instead of replacing the jobs lost during the recession, rural parts of the state are continuing to experience job loss, while at the same time, the state’s metropolitan and micropolitan areas have experienced employment growth. Metropolitan areas within the state saw a 5.6 percent increase in employment levels since the end of the Great Recession. More... |
| Issue 26, No. 2: House budget continues long-term disinvestment in state priorities |
 On Sunday night, June 9, the House released its own version of the state budget for FY2013-15. Although the plan proposes increasing overall spending, certain key investments will also see reductions this year. Additionally, the House plan envisions keeping spending at historic lows, well below pre-recession levels. In the House’s $20.6 billion budget, overall spending will increase by 1.6 percent over the base budget—the amount of spending necessary to keep providing services at current levels. More... |
| Issue 26, No. 1: Tennessee’s economy represents a pathway to poverty |
 In the current debate over tax reform, Tennessee is often held up as a role model for improving North Carolina’s economic competitiveness and ensuring future prosperity. But a look beneath the surface reveals that the Volunteer State has the wrong kind of economy to emulate—Tennessee models a pathway to poverty, not a pathway to prosperity. Despite a couple years of post-recession job growth that surpassed North Carolina’s, Tennessee’s economy has not performed as competitively as advertised over the long-term. More... |
| Issue 25, No. 2: North Carolina’s job growth leaving Western, Eastern regions behind |
 After experiencing significant job losses during the Great Recession, North Carolina’s labor market is finally starting to generate some positive news. Since the beginning of 2013, the state’s unemployment rate has begun to drop and in April fell below 9 percent for the first time since 2009. Although much of this improvement is due to unemployed workers dropping out of the workforce rather than moving into jobs, NC has experienced meaningful employment growth over the past two years. More... |
| Issue 25, No. 1: Declining manufacturing jobs major factor in high unemployment |
 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... |
| Issue 24, No. 5: Hard work not enough to keep low-income families afloat |
 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... |
| Issue 24, No. 4: NC had greater job loss during the recession than the nation as a whole |
 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... |
| Issue 24, No. 3: NC’s unusual recovery—economy grows while job creation stagnates |
 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... |
| Issue 24, No. 2: Economic recovery continues to bypass African Americans |
 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... |
| Issue 24, No. 1: Creating jobs in all the wrong places |
 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... |
| Issue 23, No. 1: North Carolina’s job creation continues to lag, despite modest gains |
 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... |
| Issue 22, No. 3: The EITC Benefits Low-Income Working Families Across North Carolina |
 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... |
| Issue 22, No. 2: Jobs deficit presents clear need for policy solutions |
 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... |
| Issue 22, No. 1: Economic Disparities Persist across North Carolina’s Counties |
 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... |
| Issue 21, No. 3: North Carolina’s unemployment rate remains stubbornly high |
 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...
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| Issue 21, No. 2: Proposals to abolish corporate, personal income tax would eliminate 60% of North Carolina’s revenue base |
 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...
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| Issue 21, No. 1: Tax Shift Would Have Outsized Impact on Lower-Income North Carolinians |
 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... |
Issue 20, No. 1: North Carolina's Jobs Deficit Climbed Again in October |
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 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... |
| Issue 19, No. 2: North Carolina's Middle Class Saw Their Incomes Fall During 2000s |
 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... |
| Issue 19, No. 1: North Carolina's job deficit continues to grow |
 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... |
| Issue 18, No. 4: Minority of NC’s Employment Concentrated in Growing Industries |
 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... |
| Issue 18, No. 3: Public sector job losses erased private sector job gains in September | ||||||||||||||||||||
 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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