Alex Campbell
Posts by Alex Campbell
Fact Sheet: Tax ballot measures are bad for local business
North Carolina voters will see two tax measures on their ballots in November that will limit state and local government revenue options and lock in outsized tax breaks for big business. These measures would lower the maximum allowable personal and corporate income tax rates to 3.5 percent and impose a limit on property tax revenue…
North Carolina’s data center subsidy problem
Big tech is investing billions of dollars into data centers and the infrastructure needed to support the buildout. Meanwhile, instead of regulating this highly extractive industry and making corporations pay what they owe, some North Carolina lawmakers continue to slash away at income tax rates and barrel ahead to eliminate the corporate income tax entirely…
Final Budget Preserves Tax Cuts While Shifting Costs to Counties and Families
On Tuesday morning, North Carolina lawmakers released their final budget for FY 2026-27 after leaving the state operating without a budget since July 2025. As previously reported, the budget makes only slight changes to scheduled personal income tax cuts and leaves untouched the continued reduction – and eventual elimination – of the corporate income tax….
“Right to Work” is wrong for North Carolina
Data and analysis adapted from the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) extensive body of research on right-to-work laws, especially their work on the impact of RTW on state economies, on unions reducing inequities and strengthening democracy, on RTW in Montana, and on obstacles standing in the way of unionization. So-called “right-to-work” (RTW) laws have existed in North Carolina since 1947. But NC policymakers are pushing…
Public dollars, private data centers: Why North Carolina needs transparency
Tech giants like Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have invested billions of dollars into hyperscale data centers. These data centers are highly extractive — occupying hundreds of acres of land, using millions of gallons of water per day, enough electricity to power small cities, and generating air pollution, noise, and disruptive vibrations. Meanwhile, these highly…
2026 Economic County Snapshots for North Carolina
The Economic County Snapshots are one of the NC Budget & Tax Center’s flagship annual publications. They provide key economic and social indicators from publicly available sources for all 100 counties in North Carolina, along with a comparison to state-level data, with measures for employment, poverty and income, affordable housing, health, education, and more. The…
A Tale of Unmet Needs and Broken Systems: Helene Recovery After 18 Months
A year and a half ago, Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina, marking the costliest storm that has ever hit NC and the deadliest storm in the contiguous U.S. since Hurricane Katrina. Although the region has now transitioned to the long-term recovery phase, many of the same human needs that went neglected in the early months following Helene remain unmet as a result of bad policy choices and broken disaster recovery…
NC’s labor market continues to weaken. Bad policy choices are to blame.
If you would like to access our general NC Labor Market page, “Work, Wages, and Well-Being,” click here. North Carolina’s headline unemployment rate remains strong at 3.9 percent, sitting below the national unemployment rate of 4.4 percent. Although the US and NC unemployment rates have been increasing from the lows in mid-2023, the increase remains gradual and controlled. However, numbers like these don’t tell…
Inflation Reduction Act: A Lost Opportunity to Advance Environmental Justice in NC
No matter what we look like or where we come from, we all need the freedom to drink clean water, breathe safe air, and live in healthy communities. To that end, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 marked a historic investment to advance a variety of climate and energy goals, including: Accelerating the transition…
Ahead of the NC Chamber’s Economic Forecast Forum: 5 Things to Know About North Carolina’s Economy in 2026
As business and policy leaders gather Monday at the NC Chamber and North Carolina Bankers Association’s 24th Annual Economic Forecast Forum to discuss growth and competitiveness, it’s important to ground the conversation in how the economy is actually working for people across the state – and what risks lie ahead. Here are five things to know about…