How about some good news for a Friday morning? North Carolina’s unemployment rate for April edged down three-tenths of a point to 10.8 percent. In March it was 11.1 percent.
It marks the second straight month that the unemployment rate has gone down. In February, it was 11.2 percent.
Lynn Holmes, chairman of the N.C. Employment Security Commission, acknowledged that challenges lie ahead.
“While overall job growth is up and the unemployment rate is slightly lower, we still face challenges in this tough economy,” Holmes said.
Our jobless rate is still higher than it was a year ago. In April 2009, it was 10.7 percent. And the rate remains higher than the national rate at 9.9 percent.
How about telling how many are no longer getting benefits or looking for work and then we will know if it is actually good news.
Hi Barry,
I read your article at the The Times about the Beach Plan and came here looking for a repost and I didn’t see it, so I’m putting my comment here.
I tried for several hours awhile back to dig up any type of actuarial data or information related to how it was determined that drastic rate increases were needed on the coast but I couldn’t find it (or perhaps it was too long winded for me to slog through). One thing I have yet to see mentioned anywhere in print is how damages due to hurricanes along the coast relates to damages from Hurricanes farther inland. As best as I can google, damages from Hugo in the Charlotte area were estimated at $1.7 billion in 2009 dollars. I’m unable to isolate the inland damages from Floyd but I feel another $1 billion here (of the $6 billion total) isn’t a bad estimate. Granted, not all of this damage is to homes and much of Floyd was flooding, but it is certain that none of the homes damaged inland from these storms paid any sort of premium for protection from wind.
I’m in full agreement with you about transparency. I’m an engineer. Show me the data about the actual risk and lets have a discussion about what is fair for rates. As it stands now, the premium I pay for my wind policy to safe guard against a 100 yr storm (which I believe is the standard?) will pay the replacement value of my home after 100 yrs (less interest/inflation) of paying the premium. That doesn’t sound like the insurance company is taking on any risk at all to me.