May 28, 2020/Press

With 1 in 4 Jobless, Tillis’ Unemployment Benefits Cuts Continue to Hurt North Carolina Workers

Nearly 41 million Americans have now filed for unemployment – a fourth of the entire workforce – but North Carolinians out of work are receiving “bottom-of-the-barrel benefits” thanks to sweeping cuts Senator Tillis made in 2013. Senator Tillis’ record of gutting benefits for people out of work and blocking Medicaid expansion reveal that, far from helping those who “need it the most” like his new ad claims, he’s hurt working families across North Carolina.

Tillis’ deep cuts, which “bestowed a tax break to state’s businesses at the expense of wage-earners’ security,” have now come “hauntingly back” to hurt those out of work because of coronavirus, leaving North Carolinians with “less money and for a shorter period of time than workers in nearly every other state,” according to recent editorials.

Thanks to Tillis, fewer North Carolinians will receive less money and for fewer weeks. North Carolina offers some of the lowest maximum weekly benefits, and the worst in the nation number of weeks for benefits — a “cruel” system that won’t increase benefits until 2021 at the earliest.

On top of that, Tillis blocked Medicaid expansion, denying health care to 500,000 North Carolinians, leaving those without coverage in the current crisis who would be helped by the state expanding access to Medicaid with “few options.”

“Nearly 1 in 4 Americans are out of work, and those in North Carolina are running into a cruel system designed by Senator Tillis that leaves them receiving less help for fewer weeks than those in other states,” NCDP spokesperson Robert Howard said. “Far from remembering those who need help the most, Senator Tillis has made life harder for them – and a new campaign ad won’t change that record.”

Read more about how Tillis’ unemployment cuts hurt workers:

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