Gov. Roy Cooper has signed an executive order expanding the state’s weekly unemployment benefit by $250, up to a maximum of $600 a week.
Cooper said the move is a response to Hurricane Helene and the concerns he’s heard about job losses due to temporary storm-related business closures in Western North Carolina.
But the increase applies across North Carolina, not just within the disaster area, because “federal law requires the elevated state payment to apply statewide,” his staff said.
Officials nonetheless anticipate that most of the extra money will go to Helene victims. Unemployment data shows that workers from the affected counties make up about 79% of the new claims that have reached the state since the storm, Cooper’s staff said.
As of Wednesday, the N.C. Department of Commerce was reporting that 17,871 people had filed Helene-related claims, and that the state had paid out $1.3 million for them.
Cooper’s announcement stressed that the move had received a unanimous endorsement from the Council of State, in line with a post-COVID change legislators made to the state’s Emergency Management Act.
The record of the vote confirmed this, with the council’s six Republicans joining its three Democrats in support of the move.
That included Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Attorney General Josh Stein, who are running in the upcoming election to replace Cooper.
The last to sign off was State Treasurer Dale Folwell, who later said he hopes state legislators and Congress take this as a cue to “draft laws that will allow precision focus and immediate action to struggling disaster relief areas instead of extending response on a statewide basis.”
State unemployment benefits last for 12 weeks, and if 50,000 North Carolinians were to file for them, the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund would be out an extra $150 million.
The fund has $4.8 billion in it, Cooper’s staff said.
“Due to the extraordinary size of the trust fund balance, employers would not see any increase in unemployment taxes due to the increased benefit,” they added.
Comment from legislative leaders was not immediately forthcoming. During the pandemic, conservatives argued that generous unemployment benefits slowed the return to work.
Cooper’s executive order doesn’t have a specific end date, though it can be rescinded or superseded by a future executive order. Ending the post-Helene state of emergency would end it automatically.
