Gov. Pat McCrory has binders full of unemployed transplants. Asked to defend recent changes to North Carolina’s unemployment system – including cutting the duration of unemployment benefits from a maximum of 63 weeks to a maximum of 19 weeks in 2013 – during a recent taping of NC Spin, McCrory said:
“We had the ninth-most-generous unemployment compensation in the country. We were having a lot of people move here, frankly, from other areas to get unemployment … People were moving here because of our very generous benefits, and then, of course, we had more debt.”
But that’s not quite how unemployment insurance works. Benefits are paid by the state in which an individual’s former employer is located, regardless of where that individual moves. The only beneficiaries of North Carolina’s “generous benefits” are people who were employed by N.C. companies. And even then, their landings were perhaps not as soft as the governor implied. North Carolina’s average weekly unemployment benefit amount prior to the cuts actually ranked 23rd in the nation, not 9th, according to NC Policy Watch.
As for the victorious drop in unemployment rates following unemployment benefit belt-tightening, economists aren’t yet convinced. As Paul Krugman noted in The New York Times on Saturday, “The unemployment rate did fall – but this was due to a large drop in the labor force, as the number of people looking for work fell. Why? Well, a likely explanation is that some of the unemployed continued to search for work, and were therefore counted in the labor force, despite low prospects of finding a job in a depressed economy, because such search is a requirement for those collecting benefits. Take away the benefits, and they drop out.”
This article appears in Jan 15-21, 2014.
Pat mcCrory constantly puts his foot in his mouth!
Well at least HE’S got something to eat!
Its impossible to believe that any public servant can be this stupid, this mis-informed, this uncaring, this cruel, to thousands of hard working people who WANT a job!!! NC will be the next Michigan and Detroit. Get this man out of office!!!!! Along with way too many NC lawmakers who think the same way. Its shocking, the whole country is feeling sorry for us but blaming us for putting these people in office in
the first place.
From the ESC Website.
There is currently no extension of federal unemployment benefits available. We will update our website if something changes. At this time, the maximum number of weeks someone is eligible for unemployment benefits in North Carolina is 19.
I also want to add we pay in to this and the reason the numbers is dropping also is the people dont sign up when they are layed off every now and then and the way they are dividing the unemployment cause all my Quaters was high and i still didn’t get but 237.00 when i usally can get 350.00 that a slap in a n.c hard worker face single could lose my home and car and everthing else while I’m put out of work for seval months untill a new line is put in but still look for work where the jobs Obama and pat McCoy would y’all want to lose everthing it’s scary and lose your good creidt that depends on everthing.a lot of people needto think about moving out of north carolina because there is alot of states that are allaround better the goverment needs to think about us little people what about if ther pay droped and very low unemployment its made to tie u over untill we can find another job but not change our unemployment to where we can’t make it. please Pat McCoy please look after north carolina like u promised and change it back to help us not to hurt us.Thanks
The labor force participation rate is falling NATIONWIDE. Both Krugman and his li’l bitch Grooms of course leave that part off. If McCrory “owns” the NC employment situation then Obama owns the THIRTY-FIVE-YEAR-LOW NATIONAL labor force participation rate.