LOD: Labor Day on Working NC

Labor Day brings a special report from the NC Justice Center entitled The State of Working North Carolina, 2012. The executive summary explains:  “North Carolina working families lost financial ground and experienced diminished opportunities through the decade of the 2000s due to several economic trends, including a dramatic increase in income inequality and the decline of the manufacturing industry. The outlook for workers worsened during the Great Recession and its aftermath. North Carolina ranked 6th in the nation for most jobs lost since the start of the Great Recession, and the unemployment rate is still nearly twice pre-recession levels. . . . This State of Working North Carolina series lays out the broad trends that have characterized North Carolina’s economic landscape since 2000 and then turns to an analysis of the state’s slow economic recovery. Then the series looks at how these trends have affected North Carolina’s working families and how adopting some key policy priorities North Carolina’s leaders can chart a better path forward in the next decade.”