Barack Obama’s Economic Plan would reverse the economic contraction in North Carolina, stimulate job growth, and relieve the burden on working families.

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment rate in North Carolina jumped to 6.0%, the fifth straight month of unemployment increases. This new data is just the latest confirmation that our economy is failing North Carolina's families, and that we need to change course from the Bush economic policies that John McCain is intent on continuing.

With the price of gas over $4.10 a gallon nationally, the cost of health insurance rising, and national job losses falling for six straight months and totaling 438,000 since January, America's working families need real relief.

“ North Carolina residents can't afford four more years of President Bush's failed economic policies through John McCain,” Obama's Economic Policy Director Jason Furman said. “Barack Obama will not only ensure the economic security of middle-class families in the short-term, but give them the chance to achieve economic success in the long-term; to make sure that Americans aren't just getting by, but getting ahead.”

In North Carolina, the jobs report this morning showed:

The unemployment rate in North Carolina jumped to 6.0% in June, rising for the fifth straight month. Overall in 2008, North Carolina's unemployment rate has climbed 1.1 percentage points, rising from 4.9% in January to 6.0% in June.

In the first six months of 2008, North Carolina has lost 12,600 jobs. Despite the increase in June payrolls by 5,600, North Carolina has seen cumulative job loss of 12,600 in 2008, falling by 1,700 a month on average.

Manufacturing jobs fell 3,100 in June and have fallen 17,100 overall in the past year. Since January 2001, under Bush, North Carolina has lost 222,600 manufacturing jobs.

Barack Obama's Economic Plan would reverse the economic contraction in North Carolina, stimulate job growth, and relieve the burden on working families. The Obama plan would:

Enact an immediate economic stimulus plan that would provide North Carolina's economy with over $1.5 billion dollars in immediate assistance to help families and jumpstart job growth.?

Provide 4.4 million North Carolina workers with a Making Work Pay tax cut of $500 per worker, and $1,000 per family. In addition, Senator Obama's plan will provide new tax cuts to help families afford healthcare, mortgages, college and save for retirement.

A married couple in North Carolina making $60,000 with two children, one of whom is in college, would get a $3,700 tax cut from the Obama plan.

In contrast, Senator John McCain's Economic Plan would:

Provide North Carolina's economy with $0 in direct fiscal stimulus. Senator McCain has repeatedly refused to join Senator Obama in supporting an additional round of stimulus.

Provide $0 in tax relief for 2.6 million households in North Carolina: 66% of North Carolina's households would receive no benefit from the McCain middle class tax cut plan.

Senator McCain's only middle class tax cut is to increase the dependent exemption, which only benefits families who claim dependents on their tax forms. Therefore single workers and couples without dependents – 101 million households throughout America and 2.6 million in North Carolina – receive $0 tax relief.

Even the conservative National Review concludes that the McCain tax plan “offers very little in the way of direct benefits to Americans in the middle of the income scale.”

• In the first year, that same middle class family in North Carolina would receive only a $125 tax cut under the McCain plan.