In her regular appearance on North Carolina Public Radio WUNC with host Jeff Tiberii, JLF’s Becki Gray and fellow guest Rob Schofield from the N.C. Justice Center discussed the many questions the coronavirus has raised in recent weeks.
On unemployment, Gray stated:
What we are seeing is real flaws in the system. Now, no system could have been prepared for the overwhelming number of people applying for unemployment…
[But] there is a real opportunity when this settles down we can go look at the system… and look at the inefficiencies.
North Carolina is one of the slowest, if not the slowest to get benefits out.
Schofield echoed Gray’s call for a review of the unemployment benefits system:
We have got to rebuild the division of employment security… When these federal benefits go away… North Carolina is going to plummet back to the bottom of the pack nationally.
You can read Carolina Journal’s reporting on where North Carolina’s unemployment system ranks nationally here.
Host Jeff Tiberii asked: “When the General Assembly comes back, how should they prioritize these requests?”
Gray answered:
We are seeing two different paths. One is regulations that need to be changed. Some regulations need to be removed and some regulations need to be put in place.
The other path is appropriations. What appropriations are you going to need short term and what appropriations are you going to need long term?
The three also discussed pets, stay-at-home orders, and potential constitutional violations due to coronavirus mitigations efforts.
Listen to the full episode of WUNC’s Politics podcast here. Follow Becki Gray on twitter: @beckigray.
