ICYMI: North Carolinians Need the “Missing-in-Action Senate” to Pass an Additional CARES Act

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

August 24, 2020

ICYMI: North Carolinians Need the “Missing-in-Action Senate” to Pass an Additional CARES Act

CBC Editorial Calls on Tillis, Burr to Continue $600 Weekly Unemployment Payments

Raleigh, N.C. - On Friday, North Carolina’s Capitol Broadcasting Company slammed the Senate’s continued inaction on a permanent fix for federal unemployment payments and called on Senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr to pass an extension of $600 weekly payments that expired last month. The editorial also notes then-Speaker of the House Thom Tillis’ role in slashing North Carolina’s state unemployment system to “one of the skimpiest in the nation” with some of the country’s lowest state payments.

Last week, the Senate left for a three week vacation without taking any action to extend federal unemployment payments.

“Thom Tillis helped make North Carolina’s state unemployment system one of the worst in the country, and now he and Senator Burr continue to do nothing as North Carolinians lose desperately needed federal support,” said Piedmont Rising Executive Director Casey Wilkinson. “North Carolinians are still out of work through no fault of their own, and they still need help to pay for things like housing and health care. It’s time for Tillis and Burr cut their vacation short and get back to Washington to pass the relief that North Carolinians desperately need.”

More from the CBC:

• "Congress – most particularly the U.S. Senate – has failed to act to provide much needed help to North Carolina and the nation’s millions of COVID-19 pandemic-forced unemployed. What the unemployed in the states are left with is a 50% cut in the federal benefits as set out in the executive order President Donald Trump offered"

• "What remains uncertain is when the state might receive the funds, just who among the state’s 863,000 approved unemployed claimants will be eligible for the benefits and how long they will last.

• "North Carolina’s unemployed are particularly dependent upon the federal help because Berger, Tillis, Moore and the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce down-sized the state’s unemployment system into one of the skimpiest in the nation"

• "What really is needed is for Burr, Tillis and their fellow senators to pass a reasonable assistance program that would continue the $600-per-week additional emergency federal unemployment assistance"

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