For years, and especially this past year, North Carolina Republicans have been patting each other on the back for their stewardship of North Carolina’s robust Rainy Day Fund. The latest self-congratulation came recently, as Union County Rep. Dean Arp penned an op-ed in the Carolina Journal lauding how the fund has benefited from Republican-led tax reform and spending restraint. “As a result,” Arp wrote, “we can help people when they really need it.”
A quick heads up, Republicans: People really need it. In the almost-year since COVID ravaged our state, hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians have lost their jobs. Businesses — including the small businesses that are the lifeblood of communities — have struggled or shut down.
But while Republicans continue to crow about the Rainy Day fund they’ve built, they’ve not used it for the downpour outside their windows. No dollars from the fund have been allocated to COVID assistance, according to Pat Ryan, spokesperson for Republican Senate leader Phil Berger. (Republicans have allocated $1.4 billion from the Rainy Day Fund for natural disasters over the past five years, Ryan told the Editorial Board.)
To make things worse, North Carolinians who lose their job have faced some of the stingiest benefits in the country. Our state lags behind most in the size of weekly benefits, and in 2013, the state cut the maximum number of unemployment benefit weeks from the nationwide standard of 26 to a range of 12 to 20 depending on the unemployment rate.
At least some lawmakers, however, have found a way to help folks truly in need: themselves.
A group of N.C. House members wants to increase the amount they receive for spending time in Raleigh, according to NC Insider’s Colin Campbell. House Bill 122 would increase per diem travel and mileage reimbursements for state employees and legislators — with the increase for lawmakers not taking place until 2023. The bipartisan bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Harry Warren, R-Rowan, Gale Adcock, D-Wake, Robert Reives, D-Chatham, and Julia Howard, R-Davie.
Both Democrats and Republicans should know it’s a bad look to find extra dollars for your own pockets while others are so desperately in need. The optics for Republicans are particularly galling, given how little they’ve tried these past months to help those suffering financially from COVID.
Instead, the struggling are getting hit with a different bill, drafted by Republican legislators last week, that would reinstate requirements that jobless people actively seek work in order to receive unemployment benefits. As the News & Observer’s Sophie Kasakove reports, Gov. Roy Cooper authorized the Department of Commerce, which houses the state unemployment agency, to waive these requirements last March.
Cooper, through a spokesperson, expressed concern about denying benefits to individuals who might have difficulties or hesitation searching for work because of COVID-19. Pryor Gibson, the assistant secretary of Commerce for Employment Security, told legislators that he questioned whether reinstating work search requirements right now would be worth “the pain and suffering that it’s going to create for folks that are already struggling with the system.”
An additional issue: Although the bill exempts people out of work for COVID-19-related reasons, Gibson expressed worry about separating COVID from non-COVID job losses, as well as communicating the distinction in a clear way to the affected. He’s right. COVID job losses have an impact on the whole N.C. economy, including jobs that might be lost indirectly.
Republicans should back off the work requirement reinstatement for now. They also could dip more into the $2.59 billion in unemployment reserves to help those whose benefits are insufficient or have run out in this challenging job market.
Lawmakers also should aggressively pursue COVID assistance that frankly should have come many months ago. Instead of making lives more difficult, they should help the people they’re supposed to serve. That would be something to crow about.
— The Charlotte Observer