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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…
Protecting SNAP Access in NC: Why the state should fully cover counties’ SNAP administrative costs
Nearly 1.3 million North Carolinians rely on SNAP each month to afford groceries. Counties play a critical role in delivering these benefits on time — by processing applications, verifying documentation, determining eligibility, and calculating monthly benefit amounts. To carry out these responsibilities, counties need adequate funding to hire and train staff and maintain the systems…
North Carolina’s revenue forecast is a wake-up call
Last week, the Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) and the General Assembly’s Fiscal Research Division released their revised Consensus Revenue Forecast for the 2025-2027 biennium in North Carolina. The forecast is important because it tells lawmakers and the public how much revenue (or public dollars) is available to fund priorities in the current…
Latest news on what’s going on with the NC budget
Sign up for text updates here! 1:30 pm, Wednesday, April 1 Last week, Governor Stein requested that leaders in the NC General Assembly commit an additional $790 million to recovery efforts in Western NC from Hurricane Helene. The bulk of additional funding would come from the Stabilization and Inflation Reserve and the remaining balance in the Hurricane Helene Fund. If approved by the legislature, funds would be spent largely on infrastructure repairs and…
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…
It’s time for a Well-Being Budget in North Carolina
What if progress and prosperity in our state was not defined by measures like the GDP or stock market, but by indicators that measure the level of well-being for all North Carolinians? North Carolina’s workers power our economy – they grow and harvest our food, care for and educate our children, and research and develop new medicines and technologies that improve our lives. Building a North…
Fact Sheet: North Carolina needs smart property tax relief, not reckless revenue limits
Property taxes are the backbone of local government funding Property taxes are a stable funding source and the largest single source of revenue for local governments. One-third of local revenue in NC comes from property taxes. Local governments in NC have few options for raising revenue. They can’t levy income taxes and have limited authority to raise sales taxes. Strict property tax limits mean more…
Statement from Alexandra Sirota, executive director of the North Carolina Budget & Tax Center, on Governor Josh Stein’s proposed budget
NC Budget & Tax Center: State Budget Should Prioritize Well-Being and Affordability for North Carolinians “North Carolinians want a budget that helps make life more affordable and strengthens the foundations of our state’s economy. Families across the state are facing rising costs for essentials like housing, child care, food, health care, and energy, and they need…
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…
North Carolina needs smart property tax relief, not reckless revenue limits
Property taxes are the backbone of local public services in North Carolina, funding everything from school buildings and libraries to fire departments and parks. But when property values rise rapidly in a housing market already short on affordable options, higher tax bills can strain incomes and displace long-time residents. That reality has prompted renewed legislative…