An executive order to extend unemployment benefits during the school year may benefit parents dealing with childcare issues. | Getty Images
An executive order to extend unemployment benefits during the school year may benefit parents dealing with childcare issues. | Getty Images
One of Gov. Roy Cooper’s latest orders would extend unemployment benefits related to COVID-19 to allow parents to continue to stay home as the school year begins is being called illegal by a statewide organization.
While a previous emergency order provided unemployment benefits for 60 days, a proposal to expand the rule for an additional nine months was not legal by Joe Coletti a senior fellow for fiscal and tax policy at the John Locke Foundation, the Carolina Journal reported on July 24.
Still, it if does get the green light, parents could be able to leave their jobs and school their children, who could most likely be at home thanks to closed schools amid the COVID-19 spread, the Carolina Journal reported.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Alyssa Trent of Greensboro told Carolina Journal. She recently accepted a job at a call center for unemployment benefits. “It’s unnerving. … We’re stuck in a situation where we want to better ourselves, but then our kids. We’re having to teach at home.”
More than 1 million residents in North Carolina have filed for unemployment since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic in March, the Carolina Journal reported. While the unemployment rate spiked to 12.9% in April, it later dropped to 7.6%. In June.
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