Sally Hodges-Copple
Posts by Sally Hodges-Copple
2023-2025 NC Budget Report: Locking in more tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of everyday North Carolinians
[Note: Here are links where you can access the budget bill and the conference report. You can also see how members of the NC Senate and NC House of Representatives voted for this conference budget.] Budget and tax decisions are how we come together as North Carolinians – Black, brown, and white, in every county across the state – to fund the…
Governor’s budget proposal offers a course-correction after a decade of tax cuts for the wealthy
Last week, Governor Cooper released his FY 2024-25 budget proposal. With key tax policy changes to shore up revenues, spending increases targeted to the drivers of economic well-being, and an overall spending level that brings the state closer to historical levels of public investment, this budget proposal rightly prioritizes the urgent needs of regular North…
Having more revenue than expected is not the same as having the revenue we need
Each year, the North Carolina Office of State Budget Management (OSBM) and the Fiscal Research Division (FRD) release a Consensus Revenue Forecast that projects how much tax revenue the state can expect to collect. The forecast represents an agreement — that’s the “consensus” part — between the legislative and executive branches about how much money…
Recognizing the Contributions of Working Families to NC’s Economy and Communities
Working families across North Carolina contribute to our state’s economy every day through their labor in essential roles, from grocery store workers to home health aides to early childhood educators. At the same time, North Carolina’s upside-down tax code asks these families to play an outsized role in funding the public services we all want…
Economic indicators of well-being should inform policy priorities across NC
Today, the NC Budget & Tax Center published our Economic County Snapshots for 2024. Released each year, these snapshots provide at-a-glance information on a variety of economic indicators for every county in North Carolina. Why do these indicators matter for the economy? People drive our economy. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this economic…
2024 Economic County Snapshots for North Carolina
The Economic County Snapshots are one of BTC’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 Snapshots are available for each…
Local tax credits are delivering for families nationwide, but not in NC
A recent report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) is timely, then, in lifting up the potential of local governments to make transformational investments in working families through innovative policies like a local Earned Income Tax Credit. While the use of these local credits is currently blocked by state law in North Carolina, their effectiveness is a reminder of what might be possible if legislative leaders pursued policies to deliver well-being to communities across NC and empowered local governments to do the same.
North Carolina’s poverty rate is a policy choice
The latest poverty data from the U.S. Census Bureau released last month shows that more than 1.3 million North Carolinians — including more than 380,000 NC children — were living below the federal poverty line in 2022. For a family of four, this is the equivalent of $27,750 in household income in a year — resources so low that families are forced to make impossible choices among buying groceries, paying rent, and meeting basic health care needs.