Plenty of politicians, planners, and business folks think they know what North Carolina’s post-pandemic economy will look like. But few seem entirely sure. They are noticeably hedging their predictions, which I consider to be a wise precaution. They ought to be hedging their bets, as well.
The latest estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show about 251,000 North Carolinians unemployed as of April, down about 58,000 since the beginning of 2021.
In a few weeks, New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones will join the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media, as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism. She accepted a five-year contract as a professor of the practice, with the possibility of receiving tenure at a later date.
Lawmakers and the governor are moving bills and disclosing recommendations for using money from the American Rescue Plan, some $5.7 billion.
When it comes to our business climate and economic prospects, North Carolinians are used to receiving accolades. Let’s add another to the list. The Cato Institute just released a study of regulatory barriers facing entrepreneurs. North Carolina fared well in the analysis, ranking 12th-best in the nation.
I’ve written a regular column for nearly 35 years. It debuted in the Spring Hope Enterprise, a Nash County weekly, in the summer of 1986 and then quickly expanded to dozens of other daily and community papers.
President Joe Biden wants you to believe that there is no relationship between the extra $300 a week many are receiving in enhanced unemployment-insurance benefits and the shortage of workers now manifest in stores, restaurants, hotels, and other businesses here in North Carolina and across the country.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans of Filipino descent had a median household income of just over $100,000 in 2019. The median household income of white Americans that year was about $66,000.
Are nurse anesthetists overpaid by 74%? Are telemarketers underpaid by 25%? If you accept the standard statistical model used to defend huge and sweeping pay raises for public schoolteachers, then you pretty much have to accept these conclusions, too. They derive from the same set of data.
For weeks after the ballots were counted, supporters of the defeated presidential candidate insisted the election had been stolen. Some alleged a shadowy conspiracy to rig vote-counting machines, throwing out just enough legal votes and manufacturing just enough illegal ones to decide the outcome.
The problem with freedom is that other people may do things that trouble, annoy, or even anger you. In a free society, you have no authority to stop them.
North Carolina is a popular destination for those seeking to make a new life in a new state. According to a tracking report by United Van Lines, we ranked sixth in the nation for inbound migration during 2020.
