2021: A Year in Review
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

NC Council of Churches

Strength in Unity, Peace through Justice

  • Voices
  • About
    • Overview
    • Staff
    • Members
    • Covenant Partners
    • Issue Statements
    • Governing Board
    • Careers
  • Programs
    • NC Interfaith Power & Light
      • NCIPL Overview
      • Faith in Action NCIPL
      • NCIPL Articles
      • NCIPL Resources
      • Upcoming Events for NCIPL
      • Contact NCIPL
    • Partners in Health & Wholeness
      • PHW Staff
      • Mini-Grants
      • PHW Collaborative Pledge
      • The Overdose Crisis: The Faith Community Responds
      • Mental Health Advocacy
      • BIPOC Mental Health Grant
      • Growing Communities of Inclusion: A Faithful Response to HIV
      • Healthy Aging
      • Citizen Science
      • PHW Articles
      • FAQs
  • Priorities
    • Racial Justice
    • The Overdose Crisis: The Faith Community Responds
    • Gun Violence Prevention
    • Criminal Justice
    • Immigrant Rights
    • Public Education
    • Farmworkers
    • Legislative Advocacy
    • Christian Unity
    • Peace
  • Events
  • Resources
    • COVID-19 Resources
    • Publications & Reports
    • Raleigh Report
    • Lectionary
    • Sermons
  • Donate
  • Council Store
  • Show Search

Search NC Council of Churches

Hide Search

Punishing the Jobless

Steve Ford, Former Volunteer Program Associate · June 26, 2013 · 1 Comment

Upwards of 70,000 jobless North Carolinians are about to see their finances go from bad to worse as they lose their unemployment benefits. Those are the benefits that can help families rocked by the Great Recession muddle through, paying the mortgage or the rent, keeping a car in the driveway and food on the table until job searches succeed and regular paychecks resume.

It didn’t have to be this way – still doesn’t, if the General Assembly would agree to a compromise before the benefit cutoff takes effect July 1. But conservative legislators and Gov. Pat McCrory, heeding the wishes of the state’s big-business lobby, the N.C. Chamber, made an overhaul of the state’s unemployment insurance system one of their first priorities after taking office early this year. Tightening up on benefits was a key part of the overhaul, and proposals to soften the blow to jobless workers have been rejected.

No wonder the scary prospect of seeing those benefits evaporate, inflicting even more misery on people struggling to pay for life’s necessities, was a focus of the June 24 “Moral Monday” protests at the legislature. The unemployment insurance “fix” may save employers some money, but the consequences for ordinary people who remain caught in the recession’s undertow despite their efforts to escape are simply intolerable in their callousness.

The business interests and their legislative allies who favor new restrictions on jobless benefits seem to think that unemployed people need a good kick in the pants, so to speak, to make them get off their couches and go look for work that’s available to anyone who wants it.

They seem to think that many people might rationally prefer to sit at home drawing modest, temporary benefits than to hold down a regular job. How insulting to honest, self-respecting folks who value the dignity of work and also know full well the practical advantages of being employed!

Crucial safety net

As a speaker at Moral Monday reminded the crowd, when someone is laid off, there goes his or her employment-based health insurance. Someone can try to maintain coverage through COBRA, but at rates that will devour a family’s savings. This is an incentive not to look for work?

Cutting off jobless benefits will make the situation all the more dire. No money coming in to pay for COBRA so that trips to the doctor are feasible. No money coming in to pay for the car that many people must have to commute. No money coming in for day care and other child-rearing expenses. For many people about to lose their unemployment benefits, it shapes up as a calamity. Kids’ health and well-being are particularly at risk.

North Carolina got itself in this bind because, back when the economy was humming, it cut employers a break on their unemployment insurance taxes. Then when the recession hit, the state had to borrow $2 billion from the federal government to cover jobless benefits.

The N.C. Chamber successfully argued for the debt to be repaid on an accelerated schedule to save employers money. But that meant reducing state benefits to jobless workers. Under the legislation enacted in February, maximum benefits will be chopped from $535 to $300 per week, and the benefit period will be trimmed from 26 weeks to between 12 and 20 weeks, depending on the unemployment rate at the time.

No awards for compassion there. But scaling back the state’s benefits means that legislators also are forfeiting North Carolina’s eligibility for the federal unemployment benefits program, which offers emergency relief to the long-term unemployed.

Freezing in July

To be eligible, a state must provide at least 26 weeks of its own benefits. The federal cutoff is set for July 1. Some 70,000 North Carolinians – people for whom the recession already has been a nightmare of long-term unemployment – will be frozen out, and estimates are that another 70,000 or more could be affected by year’s end.

So to save employers a few dollars per worker per year – and to encourage the jobless to search even harder for jobs that just aren’t there, or for which the job-seekers might not be qualified or physically suited – the shortsighted legislature would forgo some $20 million a week flowing into the state’s economy as benefit recipients pay for food, clothing and shelter.

The reasonable suggestion was made that North Carolina at least postpone its changes until the end of the year, keeping the federal safety net for the long-term jobless in place until then as the economy continues, we hope, to improve. But Republican legislative leaders have held firm. Not that they still couldn’t change their minds – perhaps with a nudge from Gov. McCrory, who was too quick to go along with this mean-spirited and counterproductive “reform.”

With the state’s jobless rate still fifth highest in the country, it’s unrealistic and inhumane to pretend that many thousands of North Carolinians could rejoin the ranks of the employed if they’d only try harder, and that stripping them of their benefits amounts to strong medicine that they just need to swallow for their own good.

State policies aren’t necessarily set in accord with religious precepts – this is not a theocracy. But if policies toward the unemployed become more mindful of the Christian responsibility to help safeguard the interests of the vulnerable, the Moral Monday folks will have gotten one important point across.

— Steve Ford, Volunteer Program Associate

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Economic Justice, Good Government, Moral Mondays, State Budget

About Steve Ford, Former Volunteer Program Associate

Much goes on in North Carolina's state capital that's important to the Council of Churches. I'm glad to have a chance to help follow the action, transitioning from my career with The News & Observer of Raleigh, where I retired in 2012 as editorial page editor. I'm originally from Virginia but have lived in Cary so long I remember the Kildaire Farm barn.

Read more of my commentary here.

Reader Interactions

More Like This

Raise the Wage
Raleigh Report – April 29, 2019
Raleigh Report – April 22, 2019

Comments

  1. Paul says

    June 26, 2013 at 10:34 am

    Bravo! I lost my job 17 months ago and have worked part-time jobs on and off since. At the same time I’m losing benefits, higher ed, where I’ve worked much of my adult life, is also being cut.

    I stay in North Carolina because I have family here but the conditions the legislature and governor have created give the impression they want me to leave for jobs elsewhere. And if I do they can add breaking up families to their list of accomplishments.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Anonymous comments or comments that target individuals will not be posted (please include your first and last name). All comments must be on topic and respectful. Comments will not be posted until they have been reviewed by a moderator. Comments do not reflect the positions of the NC Council of Churches.

Footer

Contact

NC Council of Churches
27 Horne St.
Raleigh, NC 27607
(919) 828-6501
info@ncchurches.org

Facebook

Partners in Health and Wholeness

Featured

Punishing the Jobless

Latest Tweets

#SCOTUS has overturned Roe v. Wade, making it crystal clear how much #CourtsMatter. Reproductive choice is a healthcare decision and women should make those decisions about their own bodies. We stand by those words today.

About 2 days ago

We affirmed in 1970 that reproductive choice is a healthcare decision and women should make those decisions “without embarrassment, excessive cost, and unwarranted delay.” We stand by those words today.

About 2 days ago

Grant opportunity for BIPOC faith communities in North Carolina to apply towards COVID-19 mental health efforts. Follow the link for more details! ncchurches.org/bipoc…

About 2 days ago

Join us this Sunday! twitter.com/Christin…

About 3 days ago

"All people of faith and spirituality with a role in the financial system have a responsibility to create action immediately, to put the world on a path to a just and sustainable future." publicnewsservice.or…

About 3 days ago

Follow @ncchurches

Latest Tweets

Greetings! Be sure to stop by our table at the Western NC Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church at Lake Junaluska this weekend! We hope to see you there! pic.twitter.com/30bk…

About 2 weeks ago

Hello twitter family! Be sure to stop by our table at the NC Conference of the United Methodist Church in Greenville, NC starting today! We hope to see you there! pic.twitter.com/l6X3…

About 2 weeks ago

Our mini grant cycle is now open!!! pic.twitter.com/eyRp…

About 3 weeks ago

RT @faithleadership Faith coalitions are addressing the opioid crisis by providing resources, connections and a destigmatizing vision. lght.ly/45iam80 Featuring: @okconfchurches | @ODMHSASINFO | @healthandfaith | @ncchurches | @DukeTMCI | @shannon_fleck

About 3 weeks ago

Join us for Sacred Conversations: Older Adults - Fraud & Scams on Friday, June 24th from 11 AM to 12 PM and learn to recognize common scams targeted towards older adults and how to protect yourself and those in your faith communities. ncchurches.ourpowerb…

About a month ago

Follow @healthandfaith

Latest Tweets

Faith Leaders Call on U.S. to Pay Fair Share for Climate Related Loss #USFairShare Click to listen - 2min w/Rev. Malcom @mtmalcom & Rev. @Susannah_Tuttle: shar.es/afbjPy @scennetwork1 @uscan @WEDO_worldwide @ActionAidUSA @AlabamaPJC @foe_us @UCSUSA @ClimateNexus

About 6 days ago

RT @mocleanair Climate change affects everything: investments, agriculture, health, factories, transportation, the electric grid. Fossil fuels cause climate change, and @LloydsofLondon needs to stop insuring fossil fuels. Climate change is wreaking havoc with the economy and our health. Enough! twitter.com/parents4…

About 6 days ago

RT @mocleanair Today @mocleanair, @GeorgiaIPL and @CleanAirMoms_GA delivered postcards to @SenatorWarnock asking for more funding for #EVschoolbuses! #EV schoolbuses are better for kids health and learning! #post4theplanet #cleanair4kids #CleanAir #ClimateAction pic.twitter.com/ztzI…

About 2 weeks ago

RT @mocleanair #EVschoolbuses: better for health, better for education, better for climate, and good for Georgia’s economy. A real win-win-win! #post4theplanet #CleanAir #HealthyAirIsHealthCare #ClimateAction #ClimateActionNow @GeorgiaIPL @NCIPL @uwomenfaith @AlabamaPJC @eldersclimate twitter.com/mocleana…

About 2 weeks ago

RT @alinterfaithpl You don’t want to miss this! Register RIGHT NOW with this link: us02web.zoom.us/meet… twitter.com/alabamap…

About 2 weeks ago

Follow @ncipl

Latest Tweets

Copyright © 2022 NC Council of Churches · All Rights Reserved · Website by Tomatillo Design · Hosted by WP Engine