As Republican state House and Senate leaders continue their yearlong impasse over the state budget, a group of House Democrats on Monday proposed legislation to address the state’s housing shortage, enhance local governments’ ability to increase the minimum wage and regulate large data centers.
Because Democrats are in the minority in both state legislative chambers, Republican legislative leaders are unlikely to give their bills a committee hearing, let alone a floor vote. But sponsors said it’s important that House Democrats offer a different approach to address utility bills, housing and stagnant wages, which are “three of the sharpest pain points for families.”
The proposals address troubling affordability issues that make it difficult for some working North Carolinians to afford utilities or “buy groceries without falling behind on their bills,” Rep. Vernetta Alston, D-Durham, said during a press conference.
Alston said the affordability crisis is driven by “powerful interests and bad policy choices” that push costs down onto ordinary people.
“When corporations can shift energy costs onto rate-payers, when wages lag far behind the cost of living, and when housing supply is choked by delays and speculation, working people pay the price,” Alston said.
A data center boom driven by the rise of artificial intelligence has the communities that could potentially host them concerned about the strain they could cause to the electrical grid and water supplies, as well as higher energy costs and environmental and noise impacts.
The Ratepayer and Resource Protection Act (House Bill 1063) would require large data centers to make detailed disclosures about the resources they will consume.
“We would also require that data centers pay electric rates that are proportional with the cost of actually servicing the data centers,” said Rep. Lindsey Prather, D-Buncombe.
Under the law, data centers would be required to demonstrate that they will comply with on-site clean energy generation requirements, water use standards and cost-based utility service requirements. It also restricts subsidies and tax incentives for data centers and requires annual reporting on electricity, water use and on-site generation.
“No more cost-shifting onto working families,” Prather said. “The public should be held harmless from increased costs associated with large data centers coming to town.”
Prather noted that a dozen or more communities have passed moratoriums on data centers or are poised to do so. “North Carolinians want us to get ahead of this,” she said.
Rep. Monika Johnson-Hostler, D-Wake, added that cooling or heating a home is not an option for families.
“When prices go up, it leaves families without a lot of options,” Johnson-Hostler said. “They’re forced to cut costs wherever they can. For low-income households especially, this hits hard.”
Under a bill titled the Fair Minimum Wage Act (House Bill 1059), local governments could adopt a higher minimum wage of up to $15 an hour. The minimum wage would be adjusted automatically for inflation each year to reflect increases in the consumer index. The adjustments would become effective Jan.1 each year.
“At the center of the cost-of-living crisis is a simple truth; too many people in North Carolina are working hard and still not earning enough to keep up,” said Rep. Tim Longest, D-Wake. “Costs rise year after year, but wages for too many workers remain stuck.”
North Carolina currently prohibits local governments from establishing their own minimum wage rates. The statewide minimum wage is $7.25, the same as the federal minimum wage. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since July 2009, marking the longest period in U.S. history that it has remained unchanged.
“The wages paid to working North Carolinians must reflect the rising costs of basic necessities, and indexing the minimum wage to inflation will help preserve purchasing power over time,” Longest said. “When people cannot afford basic living costs, the result is more hardship, more instability and less economic security.”
Longest noted that the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that 1.2 million North Carolinians make below $15 an hour.
The bill would set an $11 minimum wage for small businesses, those earning less than $400,000 a year. That’s an acknowledgement that small businesses cannot easily absorb increased costs in the way that large corporations can.
The bill would also create a state Wage Board to help promote fair wages, reduce avoidable layoffs and support workforce stability during economic downturns.
The third proposal, an expansive bill titled Relieving Housing Bottlenecks (House Bill 1056), would allow residential development in all commercial zones and prohibit minimum parking requirements.
North Carolina’s “housing wage” is up nearly $2 since 2024
The bill’s sponsors and other housing advocates contend “regulatory barriers, infrastructure constraints and lengthy or unpredictable approval processes” increase the cost and time to build housing, limit supply and contribute to higher prices.
The bill would require the N.C. Housing Finance Agency to establish a municipal housing approval acceleration program. It would also be asked to preserve single-family homeownership. Under the law, corporate buyers couldn’t own more than 25 homes in the state for use as rentals or other “non-owner-occupancy purposes.”
The bill also provides additional funding for the housing finance agency.
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