McCrory Blasts NC Senate Plan to Give $1500 Unemployment Bonuses for Accepting Job, ‘Not Fair to People Who’ve Been Working Their Tails Off’

RALEIGH – Former Governor Pat McCrory and current candidate for the 2022 U.S. Senate republican primary weighed in this week on a controversial bill passed by the N.C. Senate that would offer those claiming unemployment benefits a $1500 bonus cash giveaway for actually accepting a job.

McCrory said that using the federal supplemental benefits as some sort of ‘slush fund’ is wrong and not the purpose of the federal or state government’s use of the program. It should be a mere safety net, he continued, adding that it is “not fair to current people who have been working their tails off, living paycheck to paycheck, to try to feed their family and pay their rent and pay their mortgages.”

“And now the people who haven’t been working get rewarded with a $1000 or more? What a slap in the face to those who’ve been working […] This is a bribe with our debt.”

“Stop growing the Nanny State!” McCrory concluded.

Notably, this ‘bonuses for couch potatoes’ bill was passed by Republicans in the N.C. Senate. It has been awkwardly supported by Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, as a good way to get people back to in the workforce, and justified by claiming, ‘we have to spend the money somehow.’

Grassroots reactions have been much different, however, and McCrory is wisely speaking to conservative primary voters who have no affinity for government cash giveaways, whether the idea comes from Republicans or Democrats. Whether strategic pandering or honest reflection, in so doing, McCrory could be cementing his pole position in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.

State side, hopefully the Republicans in the N.C. House think better than to endorse a plan that rewards sloth and insults honest, hard working North Carolinians that take individual responsibility seriously. Our representatives should do the same.