The North Carolina House voted almost unanimously — with only one lawmaker opposed — on Tuesday to boost unemployment benefits to $450 a week.

The bill needs one more vote, largely procedural, before moving to the Senate for its say.

Currently, the weekly maximum benefit is $350 for up to 12 weeks for those who lose their job through no fault of their own.

The bill also includes provisions for employers, offering a tax credit for unemployment insurance payments made in the last quarter of 2024, along with a reduction in their payments for 2025.

Rep. Deb Butler, a New Hanover County Democrat and the lone lawmaker who voted against the bill, said an increase in benefits is long overdue, but that the bill is wrong to strip Democratic Gov. Josh Stein of power over unemployment policy and hand it over to the legislature.

The bill prevents Stein and future governors from expanding unemployment insurance benefits unless the order is approved by the General Assembly or Congress, The News & Observer previously reported.

Bipartisan work

The House vote followed a Democratic win.

Rep. Julia Howard, a Mocksville Republican, initially proposed raising the unemployment cap to $400 a week, The N&O previously reported.

She cited the health of the state’s unemployment insurance fund balance, which now has a balance of $5 billion, according to nonpartisan staff at the legislature’s Fiscal Research Division.

The fund balance stood at just $1 billion in 2009 after a recession, and North Carolina and other states had to be bailed out with federal loans. North Carolina paid off its federal debt a decade ago, after cutting benefits.

In a meeting of a finance committee Howard chairs, Democratic Rep. Deb Butler of New Hanover County proposed an amendment to raise the benefit to $450 — which Howard supported, saying she initially was going to propose a higher rate than $400.

On Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Tim Longest attempted to push it even higher, proposing an amendment on the floor to raise the benefit to $600 weekly. But this time, Republicans did not play ball, voting the proposal down.

“I am very cautious, and I wish I could tell you we’re not going to have another hurricane. We’re not going to have a snow storm or a flood, that none of those things are going to happen, but I can’t tell you that. So we’re in a lot better shape to take it slowly,” Howard said in opposing the amendment.

Fiscal research staff said that even with a higher benefit, the fund’s balance would remain “on a growth trajectory.”

How will the Senate react?

While the bill had bipartisan support in the House, it remains to be seen how the Senate will proceed.

Senate leader Phil Berger earlier this month said raising unemployment benefits is “something that we need to do,” though he did not commit to the $100 increase, The N&O previously reported.

“We need to look at the actuarial stuff and figure out where we are,” he said. “We got ourselves into a real pickle back in the recession, the 2008-2009 recession. We clearly don’t want anything that comes close to repeating that. So we’ll have to be careful about what we do.”

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