As you’ve probably heard by now, the North Carolina General Assembly has finally voted to expand the state’s Medicaid program – thereby making affordable health insurance available to more than a half-million uninsured people. It was a long overdue action that will save numerous lives and struggling hospitals and create thousands of jobs in our […]

The post Sen. Natalie Murdock on the good, the bad, and the very ugly in North Carolina’s new state budget appeared first on NC Newsline.

In just five months, North Carolinians will go to the polls in the 2024 primary election. In addition to helping select the nominees for the presidency in the Democratic and Republican parties, voters will nominate candidates for every major political office in our state, save for U.S. Senate. So, what do we know at this […]

The post Meredith College pollster David McLennan on NC voter attitudes ahead of the 2024 elections appeared first on NC Newsline.

After months of delay, Republican legislative leaders pushed through a $30 billion state budget filled with new appropriations and policy in less than 48 hours. Since then, experts and observers have been trying to piece together and decipher the scores of new laws – many highly questionable and never seen before – that are now […]

The post Rose Hoban of NC Health News on a $30B budget heavy on policy, and what’s next for Medicaid appeared first on NC Newsline.

After a delay that stretched almost three months into the new fiscal year, Republican legislators unveiled a massive budget document on September 20 and then pushed it through both chambers of the General Assembly in less than 48 hours without affording any opportunity for amendments. In order to get a better understanding of some of […]

The post Rep. Joe John on how policy provisions in the state budget will reshape NC’s judicial system appeared first on NC Newsline.

After an extended period of inactivity that’s left the state without a new budget for the first quarter of the new fiscal year, the state legislature kicked things into high gear last week passing a $30 billion budget and a series of lengthy, momentous, and controversial proposals. The sudden deluge of contentious ideas — most […]

The post Senator Natasha Marcus weighs in on the state budget, Medicaid expansion and casino gambling appeared first on NC Newsline.

One of the very few silver linings to accompany the COVID-19 pandemic was a significant decline in American child poverty. Thanks to various relief initiatives and, most notably, the expansion of the federal child tax credit that the Biden administration championed, poverty numbers fell significantly for a time as the federal government provided what was, […]

The post North Carolina Budget & Tax Center director Alexandra Sirota on the latest poverty data appeared first on NC Newsline.

For several years now, North Carolina’s Republican-dominated state legislature has been pursuing a determined effort to overhaul the state’s university system. Whether it’s the makeup of the boards and chancellors that oversee the system and its various campuses, or the actual academic programs the campuses house and the professors they hire and fire, conservative politicians […]

The post Reporter Joe Killian on the effort by Republican lawmakers to remake our public universities appeared first on NC Newsline.

When state lawmakers returned to Raleigh last week, the word on the street was that, at last, two-and-a-half months into the new state fiscal year, a budget agreement between House and Senate Republicans had finally been achieved. As it turned out, however, this rumor proved inaccurate as a dispute over whether to introduce casino gambling […]

The post Rep. Marcia Morey on the budget saga, casino gambling, gun violence, and election law changes appeared first on NC Newsline.

For the past two years, unemployment in North Carolina has done more than return to pre-pandemic levels; it’s actually dropped to the lowest level in more than 20 years. A closer look, however, reveals a more complicated picture — especially for the state’s women. Indeed, in Oxfam America’s recently released ranking of the Best and […]

The post Ana Pardo of the NC Justice Center discusses the 2023 State of Working Women appeared first on NC Newsline.

It’s been ten years since North Carolina’s experiment with private school vouchers commenced and, as multiple reports have made clear, when it comes to student achievement, widely shared opportunity, and the wise use of public resources, the program has been a dramatic failure. Given however, that state lawmakers have no intention of scaling back the […]

The post The Public School Forum of North Carolina’s Lauren Fox on NC’s private school voucher program appeared first on NC Newsline.