The Governor of North Carolina, Beverly Perdue, has signed an executive order last week that would retain the state rules which enables unemployment benefits to be extended for those who are long-term jobless workers. Perdue made the decision to issue the order and use a formula that will allow these extended benefits to continuously be offered to these workers. The Congress has prolonged such benefits for the next two months and it is expected that they will continue to be prolonged for many more months to come.

Recipients of the unemployment benefits whose benefits were expected to run out by the week of January 28^th are expected to be extended if nothing has changed and they have not found a job or received the employment they have been seeking. There are more than 25,000 long-term jobless workers who have probably been affected, according to the Division of Employment Security.

Early in the day on Wednesday, the Republican legislative leaders were encouraging the governor, Perdue, to have them come back and vote on the rule and changes if attention was necessary to such rules. Perdue decided that instead of calling the legislative leaders, she would make the change by herself, as her own decision. She signed an executive order during the month of June which ended a standoff that took place with the Legislature on the benefits that actually delayed the checks of many unemployed individuals.

Perdue says, “Middle class families across North Carolina are working harder than ever, but many are still having a tough time.” Perdue says that these benefits will be paid by the federal government and will help those who are in desperate need of as much help as they can get. This will help many families to make ends meet.

The Republican leaders were questioning Perdue’s decision to act on her own about the issue of unemployment benefits. A spokesperson for Perdue, at the time, said that the governor was well aware that she was taking a risk but believed that the Republicans were simply holding the recipients of the unemployment benefits hostage because there were weeks and weeks with a failure to negotiate.

The spokesman for Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, House Speaker, Jordan Shaw, has said, “It will be up to others to decide the constitutionality of her actions.” Shaw believes that some people agree that the recipients of the benefits do deserve such benefits but still question the fact that Perdue chose to act alone on her decision.

The former head of the predecessor organization of the Division of Employment Security, Harry Payne, has said that Perdue ad very good reason to act independently when it came to the unemployment benefits of these individuals.