What we were up to in April 2022

This update’s a little late this week for a couple reasons. First of all, we were busy releasing our Living Income Standard on Tuesday! But second of all, it’s just been a hard week with the news of the leaked Supreme Court opinion regarding Roe v Wade. As we head into the weekend, we are grateful for the work of our partners Pro-Choice North Carolina and Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and others across the state. We are also taking a deep breath and remain focused on the role of policy choices and public investments in making sure every person has what they need to be healthy and prosper.

Here are some highlights of what were up to in April at the Budget & Tax Center, as well as some upcoming stuff.

Register for Economy for All

We’ve been busy planning our upcoming 2022 Economy for All event, which we are hosting on May 24. It will feature keynote remarks from Taifa Smith Butler, President of Demos, about the bold policy choices that matter to the health of our economy and democracy. Register today and invite your networks!

Register for 2022 Economy for All

BetterNC Fellows chosen!

Thank you for supporting us with the promotion and recommendations for our new cohort of BetterNC Fellows! This year, we have selected six amazing individuals from across North Carolina. Please check out their biographies at ncbudget.org/BetterNC, where you can also learn more about the program.

Publications

• More jobs in NC than before COVID, but not everyone is recovering the same
• Our tax dollars help our communities and our neighbors prosper 
• North Carolina Budget Report 2022: A budget that leaves NC worse off
• Did you miss our email last month about what we were up to in March? You can always visit our blog, where we post the content of these emails, if you need to catch up.

What you may have missed

We’re on LinkedIn now! And make sure you are following us on Facebook  or Twitter! In case you missed it, we posted a video of Research Manager Patrick McHugh taking a walk to show how much further along the wealthy are in terms of tax cuts.

Where we’ve been

Here are few places you might have seen some of our staff show up in April.

In the media

• Alexandra Sirota wrote an opinion piece that appeared in several papers across the state: “ ‘Staying the Course’ will sink our ship”
• Patrick McHugh discussed inflation, energy costs and NC’s uneven recovery from the pandemic with NC Policy Watch.
• BTC assisted NC SPAN with some data visualization on law enforcement spending for an article “Free Bus Fare and Higher Wages is Possible in Raleigh, Here’s Why”.
• Alexandra Sirota was quoted in ABC11’s article “Raleigh hosts virtual fair housing community conference” on the history of redlining and segregation in building wealth, and a WRAL piece about incomes not keeping pace with home prices.

In the community

• Heba Atwa, Advocacy Manager, presented on our local budget work at a training in Halifax County on funding fair and safe elections, along with A Better Chance/A Better Community (ABC2) and Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ).
• We partnered with the NC Justice Center for an AHEAD NC presentation on “Community Input & Participation in Allocating Local Fiscal Recovery Funds”. Alexandra Sirota, Executive Director, presented along with community experts from Durham, Fayetteville, and New Bern, who talked about lessons they have learned. You can view the recording here.
• Alexandra Sirota, Senior Policy Analyst Logan Rockefeller Harris, and Communications Manager Mel Umbarger talked with the NC Community Foundation about our annual County Economic Snapshots.
• Alexandra Sirota and Suzy Khachaturyan, Senior Policy Analyst, have continued to support local advocacy efforts to push for equitable distributions of Local Fiscal Recovery Funds from the American Rescue Plan by holding bi-monthly action hours. In April, Suzy also participated in multiple webinars and meetings to make the case for local governments to allocate these critical dollars to support re-entry for those leaving prison, as well as providing housing supports to those experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness. Here’s a link to watch “How to support reentry efforts with American Rescue Plan funds”, which was hosted by the NC Justice Center.
• Alexandra Sirota spoke at the Annual Fair Housing Conference in Raleigh about the importance of protecting the homeownership of long-time owners of color in communities across the state and the role that property tax valuation and relief can play in ensuring the wealth building potential of homeownership is equitable.

Partner Updates

• Join our friends at the Health Action NC coalition in writing Letters to the Editor urging state lawmakers to expand Medicaid this coming legislative session. Click here to register for the event on Tues., May 10 at noon.
• What impact will a fully-funded Leandro Plan have on the school district where you live? Check out this new tool by our friends at the Every Child NC coalition to find out.
• NC Child released their 2022 County Data Cards, about children’s health, education, poverty & more in all 100 #NC counties.

What we’ve been reading

Here are a few of the articles and resources that we want to make sure you saw.

• Some Lawmakers Continue to Mythologize Income Tax Elimination Despite Widespread Opposition
• Durham, NC: Painting a safer route to school
• Data Equity: Six steps beyond data disaggregation
• Applying Racial Equity Awareness in Data Visualization
• Story Recipe: Finding specific microdata about your county
• States can center equity to strengthen their economic relief and recovery spending

Do you have an article you think we should share? Send it to me at mel@ncbudget.org.

How to contact us

We’ve put the contact information for each of our team members on our website at NCBudget.org/our-team/, or you can always email us at info@ncbudget.org if you’re not sure who to talk to.

P.S. If you’d like to support the work that we do, please consider making a gift today!