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While North Carolina's unemployment rate currently stands at just under 6 percent, some argue that problems in the state's labor market are worse than that one statistic would indicate.
Published: Monday, October 12th, 2015 @ 2:26 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Employers now will have "certainty about the cost of doing business in North Carolina," Gov. Pat McCrory said Tuesday in announcing that the state has paid off a $2.8 billion unemployment insurance debt to the federal government that he inherited upon taking office in January 2013.
Published: Sunday, May 10th, 2015 @ 5:16 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Because of tough decisions made by the General Assembly and Gov. Pat McCrory, North Carolina's payroll tax is expected to drop by about $280 million in 2016 and as much as $550 million by 2017. What you think about this sequence of events says a lot about your political philosophy and your...
Published: Friday, May 8th, 2015 @ 11:34 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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According to most economic indicators, North Carolina's economy is on the upswing. Job growth exceeds the regional and national averages. The state's recent decline in unemployment - even when you include discouraged workers who've dropped out of the labor force - is one of the largest in the...
Published: Monday, April 6th, 2015 @ 9:50 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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When the news broke that Rep. Tim Moore would be the Republican nominee for speaker of the North Carolina House and Rep. Mike Hager would be majority leader, the usual suspects did the usual things.
Published: Thursday, November 27th, 2014 @ 10:18 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Why did Democrats have a disappointing midterm election? Ask the Democrats. They've been thinking about this a lot and offer many explanations. Let's explore their various legends of the fall campaign.
Published: Wednesday, November 19th, 2014 @ 12:04 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Republican Ken Smith says his campaign to oust Democratic incumbent Rep. William Brisson from the House District 22 seat in the General Assembly is nothing personal.
Published: Sunday, November 2nd, 2014 @ 1:09 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Which picture of North Carolina's recent past is more accurate? I'll call the two alternatives Tar Heel Limbo and Tar Heel Heaven. (And, no, I'm not referring to the fake-class scandal at UNC-Chapel Hill. That's clearly Tar Heel Hell.)
Published: Friday, October 31st, 2014 @ 5:30 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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How is North Carolina's economy doing? That is always an important question. During election season, however, it takes on added significance. Fairly or not, voters often hold incumbent politicians responsible for the condition and recent performance of the economy.
Published: Monday, September 29th, 2014 @ 11:45 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote a piece for The New York Times a couple of weeks ago that was partly a response to a previous piece I wrote for The Wall Street Journal about North Carolina’s recent drop in unemployment.
Published: Thursday, August 14th, 2014 @ 9:18 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Gov. Pat McCrory and the GOP-led state legislature are at odds over the budget, Medicaid reform, Common Core, and other issues.
Published: Friday, June 27th, 2014 @ 8:48 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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The “Moral Monday” protestors, led by the state chapter of the NAACP, have a list of demands that, if implemented, would cost North Carolina taxpayers nearly $3 billion dollars now.
Published: Saturday, June 14th, 2014 @ 11:35 am
By: Civitas Insitute
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The debate about recent economic growth in North Carolina has a peculiar dynamic. Democrats who think President Barack Obama's economic policies have succeeded are simultaneously claiming that the economic policies of North Carolina's legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory are failing. Republicans who...
Published: Thursday, June 12th, 2014 @ 3:47 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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I know my advice is fated to be hated. I know it's hard to follow. But I'm going to offer it, anyway - again. Politicians and pundits across the ideological spectrum should avoid drawing sweeping conclusions from limited, preliminary data about North Carolina's labor market.
Published: Tuesday, April 1st, 2014 @ 5:43 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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When I took the job as a movie theater cashier, I had no idea my first excursion into the working world would deliver such valuable life lessons. I learned it's not a good idea to work for someone who tells you to protect the cash register at all costs and hands you a baseball bat to fend off robber
Published: Saturday, March 22nd, 2014 @ 12:21 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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It's certainly reasonable for people to use the unemployment rate and the number of jobs created to evaluate the performance of an economy.
Published: Friday, February 28th, 2014 @ 1:18 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Jean Mills earned two college degrees, taught French and Spanish, and studied and traveled throughout the United States and abroad during her short life.
Published: Friday, February 7th, 2014 @ 1:45 am
By: ECU News Services
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Under the Bureau of Labor Statistics definition, discouraged workers are those who would otherwise be in the labor force but have gone so long without finding a job that they have stopped looking. According to critics of North Carolina's July 2013 exit from extended benefits under the...
Published: Saturday, January 18th, 2014 @ 2:22 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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There is an abundance of information. It is here, it is there, it is everywhere. Sometimes I feel like I am floating in a sea of information, reports, news programs, writings and whispered messages.
Published: Monday, January 13th, 2014 @ 10:22 am
By: Hood Richardson
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Senator Kay Hagan appears to be longing for those good ol' pre-2009 days of taxing and spending with Marc and Tony and the gang in the North Carolina Senate.
Published: Saturday, January 11th, 2014 @ 2:12 am
By: Brant Clifton
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US Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) - affectionately known in many parts as Chuck Schumer's sock puppet™ - has filed a bill seeking an extension of federal unemployment benefits. Imagine that. Right in front of a tough reelection fight.
Published: Wednesday, December 18th, 2013 @ 6:01 pm
By: Brant Clifton
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The elites in government, media and academia are finally coming around to what we've known about ObamaCare for years now.
Published: Thursday, December 12th, 2013 @ 10:01 pm
By: Brant Clifton
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For North Carolina liberals intent on recovering some political power in Raleigh, a funny thing happened on the way to a quorum: reality intruded on their most-cherished claims about the two biggest issues in North Carolina politics.
Published: Tuesday, November 26th, 2013 @ 2:25 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Joe Biden stumbled into Chapel Hill this week to offer his, um, assistance to our hapless junior US senator. Around Haymaker HQ, we were gleefully awaiting more of that patented Biden wisdom and eloquence.
Published: Friday, November 22nd, 2013 @ 1:30 am
By: Brant Clifton
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When I go on the air or in front of audiences to discuss North Carolina's sluggish economy, one response I often hear is that the problem isn't really statewide. The state's major metropolitan areas are doing fine, I am assured, while it's the rural areas that are truly struggling to produce new...
Published: Saturday, November 2nd, 2013 @ 2:10 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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That's one way to interpret the current trend of the Index of North Carolina Leading Economic Indicators. Produced every month by N.C. State University economist Michael Walden, the index combines five indicators that tend to correlate with economic growth over time: initial unemployment-insurance c
Published: Friday, August 16th, 2013 @ 3:19 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Liberal politicians, activists, and commentators have spent months prodding, baiting, and criticizing Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and the Republican-led state legislature. While occasionally goading their targets into making unwise comments, the obstructionists have failed to keep...
Published: Saturday, July 13th, 2013 @ 11:47 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Contrary to recent media reports, North Carolina has taken out federal loans to operate its underfunded unemployment insurance system, and it is the state's obligation to see that $2.5 billion debt is repaid, said Dale Folwell, state assistant secretary of employment security.
Published: Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 @ 2:59 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Democratic lawmakers and left-leaning activists are advancing a meritless argument that unemployment benefits are an economic stimulus, critics say.
Published: Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 @ 5:17 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Liberal politicians, left-wing activists, and political commentators have spent months prodding, baiting, and criticizing new Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and the Republican-led state legislature. While occasionally goading their targets into making unwise comments, the obstructionists have...
Published: Tuesday, July 9th, 2013 @ 12:13 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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This is the final week 70,000 jobless workers in North Carolina will receive a federal emergency unemployment compensation check. But Dale Folwell, the state official in charge of jobless benefits, says reports claiming that as many as 170,000 unemployed state residents might lose federal...
Published: Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013 @ 10:38 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Life, the old saying goes, is best thought of as a journey, not a destination. When it comes to reforming North Carolina's tax code, however, I'd say the reverse is true. The journey may have been messy over the past few months, as state lawmakers and policy analysts pitched and debated various...
Published: Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 @ 1:53 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Life, the old saying goes, is best thought of as a journey, not a destination. When it comes to reforming North Carolina's tax code, however, I'd say the reverse...
Published: Sunday, June 16th, 2013 @ 11:08 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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"People generally quarrel," G.K. Chesterton once wryly observed, "because they cannot argue."
Published: Saturday, May 4th, 2013 @ 1:18 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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