Patrick McHugh
Posts by Patrick McHugh
Federal COVID aid helped reduce racial employment gaps, but a lot of work still to do in NC
With all of the focus on inflation over the past few years, an important and instructive story has often been lost in the noise. Unlike past recoveries when the effects of a recession linger much longer for workers of color, the strong economic growth fueled by federal COVID-aid has dramatically reduced the employment gap between white and Black workers nationwide.
Personal income tax cuts in NC are redistributing wealth to rich white people
Both chambers of the legislature in North Carolina recently introduced measures to extend and deepen tax cuts that have worsened racial wealth divides. Since 2013, the legislature has passed several rounds of cuts to the personal income tax that have overwhelmingly gone to wealthier North Carolinians.
Even without considering many ways tax changes in the past decade have reinforced racial divisions, flattening and reducing the personal income tax rate has diverted wealth into the bank accounts of affluent white taxpayers while people of color have seen less than their proportional share of the tax reductions.
Personal income tax cuts overwhelmingly go to the rich in NC
In 2013, the NC legislature started cutting taxes (mostly for big corporations and wealthy people). Most years since have NC lawmakers continue to divert public funds from things like schools, childcare, broadband, water quality, and public safety, to the pockets of out-of-state corporations and the wealthy few. These cuts also put more of the burden…
NC jobs up and inflation still slowing, but rising interest rates are cause for caution
First, today’s state employment report showed continued growth. North Carolina added around 32,000 jobs in the first two months of 2023, continuing a nearly uninterrupted streak of monthly job gains dating back to the first few months of the pandemic. That puts North Carolina nearly 260,000 jobs above pre-pandemic levels, and the unemployment rate dipped to 3.6 percent.
That’s all good news, but today’s jobs figures don’t capture any fallout from recent upheaval in the banking system.
Slowing job growth and gaping holes in the recovery clear in new NC employment figures
After revising data for the past few years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released employment figures for January of 2023 this week. The new data paint a clearer picture of how hiring slowed last year and where the economic recovery from COVID-19 remains incomplete. We’re still seeing decent jobs growth, but many communities and public services are being left behind in North Carolina.
NC schools are struggling to survive while rich people and corporations keep getting tax cuts
Wave after wave of tax cuts have diverted public dollars into the pockets of wealthy people and corporations, all while the General Assembly has refused to give schools the funding they need to find and keep teachers, bus drivers, janitors, counselors, and other people it takes to nurture our children.
For the love of taxing corporations: Most everyone agrees — eliminating the corporate income tax is a bad call
A recent poll showed that North Carolinians — of all political stripes, races, ages, genders, and even parts of the state — are stone-cold opposed to eliminating the corporate income tax.
Freedom, justice, and economic vitality threatened by potential abortion restrictions
No matter the policy details or attending political spin, any effort to further limit abortion access would be a social and economic disaster. Even if we only consider the economic ramifications, attacks on abortion access would degrade the freedom of people who can become pregnant and undermine our state’s economic vitality.
Mediocre jobs growth in NC under tax-cutting regime
After tax cuts, North Carolina has fallen behind some of our closest neighbors.
Tax cuts left many small towns, rural communities, and smaller cities out in the cold
Almost two-thirds of North Carolina’s counties have fewer jobs today than existed before the Great Recession, and almost a third have lost jobs since NC lawmakers first started implementing tax cuts in 2013.
