In the wake of the recession, unemployment insurance benefit coffers across the country dried up with so many people out of work, and states were forced to borrow money from the federal government to cover the shortfalls. In May, ahead of schedule, North Carolina finished paying off its $2.8 billion debt to the U.S. Labor and Treasure Department.
North Carolina had also been working on rebuilding the fund for future economic downtowns. Then, on Nov. 12, also a few months ahead of schedule, the state Commerce Department announced it had reached a $1 billion surplus in the state’s unemployment insurance benefits fund, triggering the suspension of the 20 percent surcharge that North Carolina employers were paying as a tax on each worker. The surcharge, which employers had been paying since 2005, officially ends in January, putting more money back in business budgets for 2016.
“[The suspension of the surcharge] is especially important to small, family businesses because it leaves them with more money to reinvest in their businesses and to pay additional employees,” Gregg Thompson, NFIB’s North Carolina state director, told the Winston-Salem Journal.
