Housing affordability has become one of North Carolina’s most urgent economic challenges. Rising rents, persistent inflation, and higher everyday expenses are straining household budgets across the state. In a statewide poll earlier this year, 70% of North Carolinians, across the political spectrum, described housing as unaffordable.
In the last year, more people have moved to North Carolina than any other state in the country. Boasting a net gain of 84,000 new residents, families are flocking to North Carolina because the state still offers something that’s becoming increasingly harder to find: a place where a paycheck goes further. That affordability edge is what’s at stake here in a costly fight that’s draining small businesses every day.
In much of the state, fewer than 1% of for-sale homes are available at any given time — far below the 2–3% economists consider a healthy market. In the Triangle and Charlotte, where employers keep adding jobs faster than builders can add roofs, the math simply doesn't work for a growing share of families.
North Carolina is in the middle of a housing crisis that is often treated like background noise. Home prices across the state have climbed far faster than wages, and rents in cities like Charlotte, Raleigh, Wilmington, and Asheville have pushed working families—teachers, nurses, restaurant workers, the people who keep our communities running—further and further from the neighborhoods they serve.
Every winter, before the ground thaws, North Carolina farmers sit down with the same local banks their families have used for generations to work out how they will pay for a crop that won’t come in for another eight months.
Several years ago a childhood friend told me he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We met in kindergarten and maintained that friendship for decades. His life ended too soon and he left behind a grieving family even after the best medical treatment available, treatment that often left him sick for weeks afterward.
As a former executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, I have spent years talking with voters about the same basic promise: government should stand up for taxpayers, reward work and protect American strength.
North Carolina has long been at the center of America's tobacco story. Today, members of our congressional delegation are helping lead an important new chapter—one focused on reducing the harm caused by smoking and ensuring adult tobacco users have access to scientifically reviewed alternatives.
When a patient walks into Matthews Drug Store in Clinton, North Carolina, they're trusting me with their health. That trust is something I take seriously, and it's why I pay close attention to anything that helps me do my job better or gets in the way.
Most Americans spend their lives working to achieve the American Dream. The idea of upward mobility, and the promise that each generation can achieve a higher standard of living and social status than the previous one, is something many people spend their lives working for.
RALEIGH — As we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, here is a question worth pondering: was the event it sought to explain and justify, the American War of Independence, fated to succeed?
For generations, North Carolinians have believed that when you buy something, you own it. That simple principle is now under threat as automakers increasingly restrict access to the vehicle data needed to diagnose and repair modern cars and trucks.
