News & Views

Sally Hodges-Copple (Courtesy photo)

It’s been 16 years since the federal government raised the national minimum wage – a fact that continues to worsen the nation’s soaring income inequality. Interestingly, in recent months, rather than proposing to make the minimum wage a living wage, some politicians – including President Trump – have championed the idea of ending taxes on the tips. Indeed, it’s a change that was included in the so-called big, beautiful bill Trump recently signed into law.

Unfortunately, while it’s an idea that may have superficial appeal in some circles, as researchers at the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center detailed in a recent brief, the proposal is more of a gimmick that would actually do little to help many low-income workers. And recently to learn more about why this is so, Newsline caught up with BTC Public Policy Analyst, Sally Hodges-Copple.

Click here to listen to our full interview with BTC Public Policy Analyst Sally Hodges-Copple.

Matt Calabria (left), who leads the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, and Will Ray, director of Emergency Management

It’s hard to believe, but we’re fast-approaching the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene and the devastation it wreaked in western North Carolina, and it seems appropriate to check in on the state of the recovery. Last week, we learned from a legislative oversight hearing on hurricane response and recovery that the process has been moving forward, albeit slower than most would like.

Today we’ll hear excerpts from that hearing in which state lawmakers got an update from the officials in charge and offered their own assessment of the rebuilding effort thus far.

Click here for our coverage of the hearing. 

Samuel Gunter, executive director of the North Carolina Housing Coalition.

You don’t have to be policy wonk with an affinity for crunching numbers to understand that North Carolina faces a dire shortage of affordable housing. One need merely talk to friends and family members – even those with middle class incomes – to understand that the picture is bleak when it comes to finding affordable rental housing, much less homeownership opportunities.

That said, the numbers are bleak. The National Low Income Housing Coalition recently released a report entitled “Out of Reach: The High Cost of Housing” and it demonstrates how the wages that millions of hourly workers are earning don’t come close to what’s necessary. In North Carolina, a full-time worker must earn a minimum of $27.14 per hour to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment.

So, how did we get here, how are policies in Washington deepening the crisis and what should we be doing? Recently, Newsline got a chance to explore these questions and more in an extended conversation with the executive director of the North Carolina Housing Coalition, Samuel Gunter.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Samuel Gunter.

Dr. Arthur Lavin

Among the most disastrous public health development to afflict the United States in recent years has been the rise of the so-called anti-vax movement. Thanks to the unfortunate rise of misinformation, disinformation and misguided parental anxiety, millions of people – especially children – are being placed at serious and unnecessary risk of grave illness and death from diseases that once had been largely conquered.

Fortunately, a lot of smart, caring and thinking people are working hard to reverse this dangerous trend and many are associating themselves with a new national nonprofit called Grandparents for Vaccines. And recently NC Newsline caught up with the Ohio-based pediatrician who’s helping to found and launch the group, Dr. Arthur Lavin.

Click here to listen to the full interview with pediatrician Dr. Arthur Lavin.

U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross (NC-02)

We’re now six months into the second Trump administration and recent weeks, in particular, have been filled all kinds momentous and often disturbing news from Washington. Topping the list, of course, is the massive new budget reconciliation package – what supporters dubbed the “one, big, beautiful bill” that the president signed into law on July 4th.

Unfortunately, as recent reports and analyses from an array of nonpartisan experts have made clear, the impacts from the bill will be anything but beautiful. Among other things, the new law promises to end life sustaining health insurance coverage and food assistance for millions of people while bestowing huge new tax breaks on the nation’s wealthiest individuals. One of the most articulate critics of the legislation is North Carolina second district congresswoman Deborah Ross – and recently Newsline’s Rob Schofield caught up with Ross in her Washington office for a special two-part conversation on the mega-bill and several other recent developments.

In Part One of the  extended conversation with Congresswoman Ross, we discussed the massive new mega-bill signed into law recently by the president and the disastrous impacts that it’s all but sure to have throughout North Carolina.

In Part Two of our chat, we delved into some of the other issues roiling the nation’s capital at the six-month mark of the second Trump administration – including the political right’s war on public education, public broadcasting, and clean energy, and most recently, the deeply disturbing effort to hide law enforcement files regarding President Trump’s past longtime relationship with the late convicted sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.

Click here for the full interview with North Carolina second district congresswoman Deborah Ross.

Zahava Stadler

One of the most disturbing hallmarks of the Trump administration has been its relentless effort to defund public education – an effort that hit a new low earlier this month when Trump’s Department of Education announced suddenly and without warning that it would be freezing billions of dollars in essential funds – funds that Congress already appropriated and for which school districts had already budgeted.

Recently, in order to learn even more about this troubling action, Newsline’s Rob Schofield caught up with a national expert on education funding, the Project Director of the Education Funding Equity Initiative at the national nonprofit, New America, Zahava Stadler. And while federal officials have since backed down on the funding freeze much uncertainty remains, and as Stadler told Newsline, the damage that could be done to our schools is enormous.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Education policy expert Zahava Stadler.

EPI senior economist Ben Zipperer (Courtesy photo)

It’s an article of faith in many conservative circles that the Trump administration’s tough anti-immigrant policies will free up jobs for U.S. born workers. New research from Economic Policy Institute senior economist Ben Zipperer, however, demonstrates conclusively that the opposite is the case. Zipperer’s calculations actually show that the net impact of mass deportation on employment – both for immigrants and U.S. born workers – is decidedly negative.

Indeed, he calculates that the administration’s goal of deporting one-million people per year will lead to a loss of nearly six million jobs over the coming years — more than forty percent of which will be jobs now held by U.S. born workers. The construction and child care industries will be among the hardest hit. Zipperer’s report is entitled “Trump’s deportation agenda will destroy millions of jobs,” and earlier this week, NC Newsline caught up with him at his Washington office.

Click here for the full interview with Economic Policy Institute senior economist Ben Zipperer.

Sen. Sydney Batch (Photo: NCGA)

The North Carolina General Assembly has gone home for the month of July, and perhaps – depending on some of the political machinations between House and Senate Republican leaders – the rest of the summer. But that doesn’t mean there’s a lot to point to in the way of major accomplishments.

Not only have lawmakers yet to pass a new state budget to coincide with the fiscal year that began July 1, but the list of truly significant legislation in other areas – Helene relief, education, infrastructure — was extremely limited.

One of the most vocal critics of this situation has been Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch. Indeed, when Newsline’s Rob Schofield caught up with her recently for a special extended conversation, Batch described 2025 as one of the most unproductive legislative sessions in modern history.

In Part Two of our chat, we discussed some of the bills GOP leaders advanced from the far right’s culture war agenda, including their especially disturbing decision to hijack a consensus bill designed to protect people from revenge porn and transform it into a catchall for things like banning school books and denying health care to transgender people. We also discussed the fact that despite repeated assurances of their desire to quote “protect women,” how Republican leaders failed to advance a bill that would have enhanced insurance coverage for detecting breast cancer.

Click here for the full interview with Senate Democratic leader Sydney Batch.

Galen Bacharier (File photo)

The new state fiscal year started July 1, and the state legislature is on vacation for most of the month, but that doesn’t mean we have a new state budget. Thanks to big disagreements between NC House and Senate Republicans, the state is listing along on its old budget and several major decisions – most notably around teacher and state employee pay – remain on hold.

Lawmakers will return to Raleigh the week of July 28th and at that time they’ll have a long list of potential agenda items, including the budget, several gubernatorial vetoes, Hurricane Helene recovery issues and an ambitious GOP sponsored election law overhaul. Recently Newsline’s Rob Schofield sat down with politics and state government reporter Galen Bacharier to learn more.

Click here to listen to the full interview with NC Newsline reporter Galen Bacharier.

SEANC Executive Director Ardis Watkins (Courtesy photo)

Despite their failure to agree on a new state budget, North Carolina lawmakers are taking most of the month of July – the first month of the new fiscal year – off. Not surprisingly, this is not a situation that’s sitting particularly well with a lot of state employees as they wrestle with another year of declining pay, staff shortages, and soon-to-be-announced premium hikes for the State Health Plan.

NC Newsline’s Rob Schofield got the chance to discuss some of these issues and concerns with the executive director of the States Employees Association of North Carolina, Ardis Watkins. And as Watkins told Newsline, the fix for what ails much of state government – improved appropriations — is no particular mystery. The question is whether lawmakers will ever muster the courage to honestly confront this hard truth.

Click hear to listen to the full interview with States Employees Association of North Carolina Executive Director Ardis Watkins.