North Carolina businesses fear effects of bathroom bill / Public News Service

North Carolina’s business community is alarmed after Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson praised the controversial House Bill 2, known as the “Bathroom Bill,” at a private lunch.

The 2016 law required individuals to use bathrooms matching their gender at birth and prevented local nondiscrimination ordinances.

Raleigh business owner David Meeker, whose livelihood depends on tourism, recalled the economic damage HB 2 caused. Now, Meeker and others worry a resurgence of similar policies could cause North Carolina economic harm by driving away potential businesses.

“My development company relies on people and businesses continuing to move to Raleigh and North Carolina and it being a good place to do business,” he said. “House Bill 2 negatively impacted that too, and I think we’re still feeling some of that impact even now, eight years later.”

During its implementation, the bill led several major businesses, including PayPal, to cancel expansions, costing the state nearly $4 billion in lost investments and about 3,000 jobs. The NCAA and NBA also moved major events out of North Carolina. Gov. Roy Cooper repealed the bill in 2017.

Susan Sawin, owner of Island Bookstores on the Outer Banks, echoed these sentiments. She said the fallout from HB 2 hurt businesses such as hers that depend on events and foot traffic.

“All across the state, it was bad for business in 2017-18, and it would be bad for business again,” she said. “So, for Mark Robinson to say publicly that the bathroom bill was the ‘best thing that ever happened to the state,’ it’s just a flat-out lie.”

With North Carolina twice named “America’s Top State for Business” under Cooper, Meeker said he hopes the state continues to maintain that title. He said business owners are urging inclusivity and a focus on making sure the state remains a top destination for business and tourism.

“It is a huge concern to small, medium and big businesses,” said Meeker, “and we really do need a governor who’s bringing business here and encouraging tourism, versus a governor whose plan would literally be to do the opposite.”

The North Carolina Chamber of Commerce has also raised concerns about controversial ideologies and their impact on the business climate in the state.

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A new report finds New York’s rising cost of living and having living-wage jobs are priority issues for young voters.

Research shows a single person has to make almost $27 per hour to afford to live in New York State. On average, tipped-wage workers make almost $18 an hour with tips.

One way to help young voters is eliminating the $10 subminimum wage.

Saru Jayaraman, co-founder and president of One Fair Wage, said this could slow down so-called “tip-flation.”

“As long as the restaurant industry gets this exemption that they don’t have to pay the minimum wage,” said Jayaraman, “every other industry that’s facing staffing crises, rather than doing what they should be doing, they are also attempting to introduce tipping as a way to replace what they really need to do – which is to raise wages.”

A bill ending the subminimum wage for restaurant workers has been introduced in New York’s Legislature, but faces opposition from groups such as the National Restaurant Organization.

Restaurants argue forcing them to raise wages would erode their already narrow profit margins, and force them to lay off staff or cut hours.

But restaurants in other states are seeing dividends from paying workers a full minimum wage – plus tips.

Several states have ballot measures this year for voters to decide whether to end the subminimum wage. Seven states, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., have abolished the subminimum wage.

By providing a living wage, the businesses can attract people to work in an industry struggling with its post-pandemic recovery.

Jayaraman said incidents of sexual harassment decline for restaurants paying workers a full wage.

“When you’re not so dependent on tips to make up your base wage, you can reject harassment from customers, because you can count on a wage from your boss like every other worker in every other industry,” said Jayaraman.

Studies show female tipped workers in states using the federal sub-minimum wage experienced sexual harassment twice as often, and were told by management to wear “sexier clothes” three times as often than workers in states without a tipped minimum wage.

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Half of Americans go to work every day in the service industry, doing clerical work or in construction and other manual labor jobs but fewer than 2% of state lawmakers have any experience in working-class jobs, according to a new report.

Nicholas Carnes, political scientist at Duke University and co-author of the report, said when a broad section of the workforce is not represented, their concerns can be missed in critical policy decisions. He pointed to the old political saying: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

“If there’s a problem facing most lawyers, you can be darn sure the state legislature’s going to care about it,” Carnes asserted. “But if there’s a problem facing working class people, our institutions can miss it when we have so few in office.”

Just 1% of Republicans, and 2% of Democrats in state legislatures came from working class occupations in 2023. The report echoed warnings by Northwestern and Princeton University researchers American democracy has become a plutocracy. While ordinary voters have virtually zero impact on national policies, the decisions are dominated by wealthy individuals and business interests.

Carnes emphasized state legislatures make decisions with significant consequences and if an entire economic class of people are not in the room when policy decisions are being made, it can have a huge effect on the kinds of problems getting addressed, as well as proposed solutions.

“If no one in the room has been on what we used to call food stamps, is the $15 a month reduction a big deal?” Carnes asked. “No, it’s not a big deal … well yeah, it actually is a big deal for some people.”

Very few Coloradans can support a family on $44,000 a year, the current salary for state legislators, or take time off work and raise the amount of money needed to run an effective campaign. Carnes believes getting state legislatures to better reflect the population they represent will take some work.

“Democracy’s a good thing,” Carnes noted. “But this is an unintended side effect of just how burdensome it is to run for office in any setting. And so, we need to think about targeted interventions that will make running for office more accessible to working-class people.”

Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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Help is available for people looking to break out of a low-wage, “go-nowhere” job because the nonprofit Merit America is expanding its training courses, thanks to a huge new grant.

Crankstart, a family foundation based in San Francisco, is giving more than $15 million over the next few years.

Connor Diemand-Youman co-founder and co-CEO of Merit America, said they have trained 10,000 learners across the U.S. since 2018.

“At Merit America, we believe that low-wage work should be a launching pad, not a life sentence,” Diemand-Youman explained. “If we can provide the right coaching and support, everyone anywhere should be able to access family-sustaining wages and a career that they love, not just a job that they have to show up to. And this is the American dream.”

He pointed out Merit America facilitates online courses on tech skills with intensive career coaching and peer support on a flexible schedule to accommodate learners currently in the workforce. The programs average about 25 hours a week for 20 weeks, and cover topics like data analytics, project management and cybersecurity.

A study by the University of Virginia found alumni of the program see their average salaries jump from $26,000 a year to $50,000, three months or more after graduation.

Diemand-Yauman noted the program costs a maximum of $5,700, which learners pay off over five years once they graduate and get a job making at least $40,000 dollars a year.

“We designed the programs to be fast, flexible and affordable,” Diemand-Yauman emphasized. “Which we find are the main barriers for folks who are stuck in low-wage work and want to get into a new career.”

Merit America estimated the new partnership will allow the program to serve 2,000 more learners, driving about $200 million in wage gains. Anyone over 18 can apply.

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