A state House committee approved a plan Tuesday to increase unemployment benefits due to inflation, just as a temporary Helene-related increase is set to expire.
The maximum weekly unemployment payment of $350 hasn't changed for more than a decade, and it's among the lowest in the country — even as the cost of living in North Carolina and across the U.S. has increased significantly.
The House Finance Committee unanimously approved an increase to $450, but the bill's sponsor Rep. Julia Howard, R-Davie, said she's not sure the Senate will agree to that amount.
"I have no clue what changes that they might make to it," she said, adding that some senators were open to an increase to $400 weekly. "Only God knows what the Senate's going to do. You know that."
Howard's initial bill called for the $400 maximum, but in a rare win for Democrats at the legislature, Rep. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, proposed an amendment for a $450 increase. Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee voted in favor of Butler's amendment.
"It seems to me with a $5 billion (unemployment) trust fund, even raising it to $450, which is certainly sustainable, we're putting more of our money back into our economy instead of letting it sit there at the Fed," Butler said. "Like they say, you don't ask, you don't get. So maybe we ask and if you have to capitulate in conference (with the Senate), then you just do."
If the legislation becomes law, the higher unemployment benefits would take effect in March. That's when a temporarily higher unemployment benefit enacted by Gov. Roy Cooper's Helene executive order will expire. The temporary increase to a $600 maximum was designed to help people who lost their jobs due to the storm, but it applied to unemployed workers across the entire state.
The bill also includes a one-time tax credit for employers on their unemployment insurance, equal to the amount they paid during the fourth quarter of 2024.
"The thought process is to try to help both hands in this, by increasing the claimants' benefits on one hand and then to help the employers on the other hand, because employers are suffering just as much as claimants," Howard said.
The bill now goes to the House Rules Committee.
