Each week, staff at Carolina Journal looks back at the week in N.C. politics and chooses several interesting, relevant stories you may have missed. Reopen the schools: Five parents are challenging Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ decision to start the school year with full-time remote learning. The group of parents filed a lawsuit Sept. 3 in Mecklenburg County...
On Monday, May 18, the opinion team for The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer called for Gov. Roy Cooper to take responsibility for North Carolina’s disastrous unemployment insurance system. “NC unemployment delays have been a disaster. Own it, Gov. Cooper,” read the headline for the editorial appearing in both papers. I agree with...
Last weekend, the N.C. Division of Employment Security quietly changed the reporting of unemployment insurance claims, resulting in a significantly lower count of claims activity since March 15. DES introduced a count of people filing claims and emphasized that number rather than the number of initial claims filed. More data is usually good to have,...
After Gov. Roy Cooper ordered restaurants and bars closed starting March 16 due to the coronavirus, unemployment benefit claims in North Carolina skyrocketed. More than 1 million North Carolina workers have filed claims for unemployment insurance as of May 3, the Division of Employment Security reports. The state’s civilian labor force is roughly 5 million....
Gov. Roy Cooper says the state Division of Employment Security is buried under a “mountain of claims,” receiving more than 20,000 requests for Unemployment Insurance benefits Sunday, March 29. By contrast, the agency dealt with about 25,000 claims a month during the Great Recession and is set up to handle about 3,000 claims weekly. But...
