Aug 21 2008
N.C. Unemployment at 5-year High of 6.6%
AÂ souring economy in North Carolina received another piece of bad news yesterday, with the jobless rate hitting a nearly five-year high of 6.6 percent in July, the N.C. Employment Security Commission reported.
The forecast for the rest of the year is even bleaker, with economists predicting that the jobless rate could rise in 2009 to a level not experienced in 25 years.
“The state unemployment rate will go higher, with the seasonally adjusted rate to average 7.1 percent for the remaining five months of the year,” said Michael Walden, an economics professor at N.C. State University. “The rate will continue to rise into 2009, peaking near 7.5 percent.”
Let me slap some knowledge down on you (courtesy of the Civitas Institute):
- N.C.’s annual unemployment rate exceeded the national average only once in the 25 years before Michael Easley’s election. Since then, it has outpaced the national average 7 years in a row.
- From 2000 to 2007, N.C.’s ranking in relative tax burden jumped from 36th to 19th. No other state jumped as high.
- N.C.’s current corporate tax rate is 6.9%- the highest in the southeast and higher than 21 other states.
- N.C.’s state and local taxes consume more personal income -11%- than any other state in the southeast.
If unemployment worries you, as it does me, kicking Easley and Perdue out of the Capitol would be a fine way to start fixing things.
