NC House Republicans add child care money to bill that strips unemployment benefits

State House members agreed Thursday to help North Carolinians, who are heading back to work, with their child care costs.

The House voted to use $250 million in American Rescue Plan Act money to subsidize child care for qualifying children.

“I can think of nothing that signals more the commitment of this House to ensuring that everyone who is able to work is able to do so — the child care is dealt with,” House Speaker Tim Moore said, before asking for a unanimous vote on the entirety of the bill that included the child care money.

But that didn’t happen.

The child care subsidies were in a larger bill introduced less than 24 hours earlier that would remove North Carolina from a federal program that pays $300 per week to people who lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

House Democrats pushed back on the bill but didn’t have enough votes to stop it from moving forward. It will now go back to the Senate and, if approved there, will be sent to the governor. If he signs the bill into law it would start 30 days later.

“Right now we have a system in place that is essentially incentivizing not working,” Moore said. “That is not right. That is not good for people; that is not good for this state.”

The House Republicans have the support of U.S. Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr who last week called on Gov. Roy Cooper to pull the state out of the federal program.

But Cooper said workers are facing high child care costs and low wages, and those out of work are dealing with some of the worst unemployment benefits in the country.

Bill put on fast track

Rep. Jason Saine, a Lincolnton Republican, first introduced the bill Wednesday night in a finance committee meeting. The bill was fast-tracked, moving from committee to the floor in less than 24 hours.

Senate Bill 116 started out and was sent to the House as a bill to increase the number of people who could attend events at public and private schools during Cooper’s emergency order that limited that number.

With that order now lifted, Senate Bill 116 became a moot point.

Until House Republicans got hold of it.

“The thing I have heard repeatedly, wherever I am, is businesses saying we can’t find people to work,” Moore said Thursday. “You can leave this building and drive within a quarter mile and you can find Help Wanted signs everywhere.”

The bill now titled, “Putting North Carolinia Back to Work” drew ire from House Democrats on Thursday. They worried about the economic impact to both businesses and the more than 240,000 unemployed residents in the state.

Rep. Brandon Loften, a Mecklenburg Democrat, said North Carolina’s unemployment rate has been on a steady decline, proving to him that people are going back to work and others are still looking for work.

“This is precisely the wrong time to cut this benefit,” he said.

Minimum wage

Rep. Deb Butler, a Wilmington Democrat, also spoke against the bill.

She reminded her colleagues about constituents who were upset, frustrated and angry when they lost their jobs at the start of the pandemic and how hard lawmakers worked to pass legislation to help them.

She, and other Democrats said the House needs to talk about the state’s minimum wage, a statement that repeatedly had Republicans calling on their colleagues to stick to the topic.

House Minority Leader Robert Reives told the Republicans he understood their argument but wished they could sit down and talk about the bill before putting it on the calendar.

After Thursday’s session Reives told The News & Observer that Republicans might have gotten a unanimous vote if they had slowed down and talked it through, but instead Democrats had to go with their gut instincts.

“I’m not telling you we couldn’t come to that conclusion on a bill like this, but I’m telling you that we just had people who they looked at it and their gut was, you know, a lot of our caucus knew people who weren’t just sitting at home.”

Everyone wants to see people back at work, but the solution isn’t as easy as Republicans made it out to be, he said.

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 3, 2021 at 6:14 PM with the headline "NC House Republicans add child care money to bill that strips unemployment benefits."