NC House Republicans push to remove the state from extra federal unemployment benefits

Key Republicans in North Carolina’s state House are pushing to end extra federal unemployment benefits for workers in the state.

The program offers an additional $300 a week to North Carolinians who can’t find work because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A proposal to remove the state from the pandemic unemployment compensation agreement emerged in a House committee meeting Wednesday evening.

“We’re hearing from our employers as the economy gets back and churning that they are looking for folks to get back to work,” said Rep. Jason Saine, a Republican from Lincolnton, “and this will help speed that up.”

State legislative Republicans are echoing North Carolina’s U.S. senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, who called on the Democratic governor to end the program last week, saying that the program is causing a workforce shortage in the state.

More than two dozen Republican-led states have ended or are considering ending their participation in the program ahead of its planned expiration in September.

In North Carolina, the state House finance committee passed the bill Wednesday evening. It would have to be approved by the full House before consideration by the Senate and then Gov. Roy Cooper, who has pushed back against the idea of cutting benefits.

“North Carolina has among the stingiest and shortest unemployment benefits in the country and many families are dealing with issues such as lack of affordable child care and finding jobs with livable wages,” Cooper said in a statement responding to Burr and Tillis’s letter.

During the finance committee meeting Wednesday, some House members agreed with Burr and Tillis that the program is causing unemployed workers to remain home.

Lawmakers learned during the meeting that 240,000 people in North Carolina are currently unemployed but legislative analysis staffers were unsure how many qualified for the federal dollars.

Back-to-work bonuses?

Democrats questioned whether taking money from the unemployed would harm them, while also saying that taking that money out of North Carolina’s economy could affect spending in the state.

“This entire debate is going to be over on Sept. 6,” said Rep. Wesley Harris, a Charlotte Democrat, “and just to add some undue burden on the people who actually are struggling, just to make a political point and say that we’re getting people back to work when there’s no evidence or no conclusive evidence that that is the case, I honestly just think is a cruel thing to do.”

The House’s proposal differs from the N.C. Senate’s unemployment bill. The Senate’s bill would keep the federal program intact but add bonuses for people who find new employment.

At the federal level, Rep. Ted Budd of North Carolina has also filed legislation in Congress to repurpose the program’s money into back-to-work bonuses.

Rep. Deb Butler, a Wilmington Democrat, asked how lawmakers can suddenly take away people’s money and not give them something in return.

Saine told her that the federal money would continue, if the bill passes, for four weeks after the bill becomes law.

“If we paid workers more, they would go back to work,” Butler said in response.

Saine put forward the proposal to pull out of the federal program as a new version of Senate Bill 116, now known as the “Get North Carolina Back to Work Act.”

The bill replaces the “Let them Play, Let us Watch” bill that was passed by the Senate and would have allowed more people to attend events at public and private high schools.

That version of the bill has become a moot point now that Cooper has lifted gathering restrictions from his COVID-19 emergency orders.

For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.

This story was originally published June 2, 2021 at 5:31 PM.