What we were up to in June 2022
It’s been six months since the NC Budget & Tax Center became a new organization, and it’s amazing how fast it’s gone by. We’re still evolving and figuring things out, and we’re very grateful that you’ve been along for the ride.
The legislative session just ended, and the legislature sent their budget to the Governor for his signature. It’s a bad budget.
And there were a host of important opportunities that legislators could have pursued this year that we outlined in a series of fact sheets:
- Wealthy corporations paying what they owe would help North Carolina thrive
- Adequate, accessible food assistance would fight hunger in North Carolina
- NC child-care assistance supports parents’ ability to work, future success of children
- A NC EITC supports working families whose earnings don’t meet the costs of basics
- A North Carolina Child Tax Credit would help every child thrive
July partner meeting
Make sure you are signed up for our July 27 partner meeting, where we will talking about who is impacted by inflation and the solutions we need.
Economic County Snapshots released
We released one of our flagship annual publications, the Economic County Snapshots, last week. The Snapshots provide key economic and social indicators 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 supports for working families.
For the first time, we’ve provided data from the Snapshots in interactive online maps and made it available for easy download in spreadsheet format, so you can more easily use these numbers for the work you’re doing in your community. As in the past, we’ve also included a standalone publication for each county, where you’ll find all the indicators on one convenient page.
Check out the County Snapshots
Recent labor market data show we are at risk of repeating past mistakes
Research Manager Patrick McHugh published a recent piece on recent NC labor market data and why the signs that we’re at risk of replaying what happened in the wake of the Great Recession should give everyone pause. As the Federal Reserve looks to reduce inflation, consumers get more pessimistic, and war in Europe continues to destabilize global markets, the potential for a recession is very real. There’s still plenty of reason to hope we can avoid anything like the collapse of the Great Recession, but there is a chance that the hot economic run will come to an end before all of North Carolina’s communities recover what they lost during the pandemic.
Patrick has a couple past publications that are worth revisiting in this context:
- Lessons from the Great Recession: Helping people, supporting communities, speeding recovery
- What will 2022 bring? We don’t know for sure, but here are a few things to keep your eye on
Where we’ve been
- Senior Policy Analyst Suzy Khachaturyan was on a resource panel at this Eastern North Carolina Regional Church and Community Resiliency Collaborative event (on Juneteenth observance day) in New Bern to discuss the opportunity to drive local American Rescue Plan dollars to community-identified needs.
https://twitter.com/DawnBaldwinGib1/status/1539275190391214081 - Budget & Tax Center staff members joined partners at the General Assembly to share how policy choices can boost child and family well-being, as well as with Think Babies NC for their Strolling Thunder event and Every Child NC for their event on making sure every child gets a sound, basic education.
- Advocacy Manager Heba Atwa spoke at a press conference at the NC General Assembly calling for Family First policies in NC (starting at 14:37).
What we’ve been reading and watching
- From Kamolika Das at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, on the importance of tax policy to advancing racial and economic equity in the South
- The Economics of Abortion: Are abortion rights an intrinsic part of economic rights?
- From Economic Policy Institute on the careful considerations when responding to inflation
- From former BTC Policy Analyst Brian Kennedy II on the need for a Black Worker’s Bill of Rights
- From Tressie McMillan Cotton on jobs, citizenship and the overturning of Roe v. Wade
