It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Monday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. As tariffs went into effect for multiple nations back last week, August the 7th. The automotive industry is reporting an almost twelve billion dollar hit in financial losses due to said tariffs.
That's according to analysis from the Wall Street Journal. Import duties on the automotive industry totaled more than $11.8 billion. Automotive manufacturers reported the losses from previous instituted tariffs, including a 25 percent tariff on the automotive industry as well as a continued 50 percent tariff on steel and aluminum. The sector expects bigger financial losses as those August the 7th tariffs are fully implemented. Joseph Harris, a fiscal policy analyst over at the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal, this spring the Trump administration imposed 25 percent tariffs on imported passenger vehicles, light trucks and auto parts, sending shockwaves through the automotive industry.
In the second quarter, operating earnings among 14 major automakers declined by a combined $12 billion. One of the state's largest automotive companies, Toyota, reported a $3.06 billion hit in tariff duties, the most significant hit reported by a single auto manufacturer. That's according to an April report also by The Wall Street Journal. Toyota expects a $9.5 billion hit by the end of the fiscal year in March, resulting in a 44% decline in net profit. According to Emily Holland, the manager of corporate communications for Toyota America notes that Toyota has been part of the cultural fabric in the United States for more than 65 years.
And our philosophy has always been to build where we sell and build where we buy. noting that with over fifty billion dollars invested in the United States, including ten US manufacturing plants and more than forty nine thousand direct jobs, we are fully compliant with the USMCA trade agreement and will continue to deepen our investments in America. Like the entire auto industry or any other global business, we will continue to adapt to trade policies to meet consumer needs. And quote there from Toyota Toyota North America. This also follows reports from General Motors.
The company absorbed about $1.1 billion in tariff costs in the second fiscal quarter. Due to tariffs, GM estimates a $4 to $5 billion annual impact as those results and the impacts of those tariffs continue to be played. GM manufactures vehicle for private and commercial use. GM Defense, which is a subsidiary of General Motors, also manufactures vehicles for the Department of Defense. They have a production facility in Concord, which opened back in 2021.
Joseph Harris continued by noting that the largest year-over-year loss was reported by Japanese automaker Toyota, whose operational earnings dropped by $3 billion. The German automaker Volkswagen also absorbed the second largest hit, which was $1.5 billion. American companies GM and Ford experienced the third and fourth largest decline, each around $1 billion apiece. He noted, so far automakers have resisted raising prices, but if elevated trade costs persist, manufacturers will likely reconsider their pricing strategies in the very near term future. Tariffs could accelerate the completion of several long delayed products, including a potential Audi factory, Volkswagen, as well as other companies that have confirmed ongoing discussions with the White House regarding investment packages to build more of their vehicles in the United States.
Volkswagen has already incurred about $1.5 billion in losses and forward about a billion. Tesla is seeing some of the mo the the least amount of impacts at just $0.3 billion, around $300 million. The U.S. automotive industry faces substantial financial pressure due to escalating tariffs, billions of dollars in reported losses, and more expected in the coming months as those tariffs continue to stress out that industry. We'll continue to track the details not only on tariffs on the automobile industry, but all of the other sectors that we have been continuing to track over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, and right here on the Carolina Journal NewsHour, where it's now 5:10, News Talk 1110, 99.3 WBT.
Government meetings happen pretty regularly across the state of North Carolina, and they often don't get a whole lot of attention.
However, coming up later on this week, the North Carolina State Health Plan Board of Trustees is set to meet, and that is likely to get some big-time attention as they're likely to be dealing with some rate increases. To walk us through and preview what that meeting could look like, Teresa Opaca, CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour. Teresa, it's been many, many years since rate increases have happened for members of the state health plan. Looks like that's going to be happening sometime later this week. Yes, good morning, Nick.
Thanks for having me. It's been quite a while since they had premium increases. Treasurer Brad Riner did talk about this in the last couple of months and also at last week's council estate meeting.
So I think it's been about eight years or so before they've had an increase. And what they were doing is they were actually going through the reserves to head that off. But unfortunately, you know what happens? If you're not billing the reserves up, they get depleted.
So this is something that's necessary. And the State Health Plan Board of Trustees is meeting on Friday to set premium rates. They've already had a couple other meetings throughout the year where they talked about how co-pays are going to be going up and also some other things as well.
So yeah, on Friday, over 700,000 estate Health plan members are going to be finding out how much their premiums will be going up. And you talk about borrowing from some of those reserves. And Teresa, while nobody wants to pay more, looking at some of the projected deficits for the state health plan, these are some astronomical numbers, $507 million in 2026 and between $800 and $900 million in 2027. That is a large chunk of change that the state health plan is going to have to make up. Right, right.
You know, and Breiner was left with the task to figure all that out, you know, and he took over in January.
So, yeah, unfortunately, as it happens with all of us, you know, most of the things are going up these days or not going down.
So, it's something that's significant. And they also have looked for other ways to possibly lower things as well.
So, it's just a good way that they're trying to make up for that. And so, Teresa, I guess as we look at this, you talked about over 700,000 people as part of the state health plan, a couple of different deductible packages and things that are available. It looks like that's going to be going up probably for everybody across the board. Yes, yes.
So we're taking a look at that for what they talked about in their meeting in May. This is for active and non-Medicare members. Those under the 70-30 plan, they're going to see their deductibles go up from $1,500 for singles and $4,500 for families, $3,000 and $9,000 respectively. And under the 80-20 plan, deductibles are going to go from $1,250 for singles, that's $1,200, and also $3,740 for families to $1,500 and $4,500 respectively.
So you've got that going up as well. Torisa, at a meeting a couple of weeks ago, we told the Council of State that there's actually a new partnership with a company called Lantern. What is that going to mean for folks that are on the state health plan? Sure.
So Lantern is a digital specialty care platform that's going to, as Treasurer Breiner said, it's going to benefit the plan's members. The new agreement with Lantern will offer members no-cost access to a vetted network of surgeons and specialists and provide personalized support through care advocates and nurse navigators, while at the same time controlling costs for members and also the state health plan. They're looking at possibly getting zero costs for different surgeries.
So that would be a big cost savings for the state health plan. Yeah, no question about it. Nobody wants to pay more. But again, as we talked about some of those deficits and borrowing from reserves over the last eight years, it seems like that has finally hit ahead here. That meeting, as you noted, does happen on Friday.
Folks can read some details on some of the previous meetings that have taken place. And of course, we'll keep an eye on that meeting as we get towards the end of the week. We appreciate the update this morning. Teresa Opeka from CarolinaJournal.com joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. With Robinhood, not only can you trade individual stocks and ETFs, you can also seamlessly buy and sell crypto at low costs.
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Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Stock 1110-99.3 WBT. If you are with us a Friday morning, we were previewing a North Carolina State Board of Elections meeting that did, in fact, happen Friday morning. And as a matter of procedure, the state board read over a settlement reached in the case of the Republican National Committee, that's the RNC, versus the North Carolina State Board of Elections. NCSBE general counsel Paul Cox said that under the open meetings law, it is required that once a public body makes a settlement in closed session, that the settlement, once executed, has to be reported out at the next public meeting. And well, that next public meeting happened on Friday.
State and national Republican groups and the North Carolina State Board of Elections reached a deal last month to end the lawsuit over voter identification and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's digital ID cards. The election board agreed not to accept any electronic identification as a voter ID unless the General Assembly approves a new law permitting that form of ID. The Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party filed suit in 2024 to block the state board of elections from allowing the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill's digital ID cards from being used for voting purposes. The state board of elections, then with a 3-2 Democrat majority, had voted to accept the digital IDs as a valid form of voter ID across the state of North Carolina. Wake County Superior Court Judge Keith Gregory, also a Democrat, upheld the state board's decision.
However, the North Carolina Court of Appeals issued an order in September of last year blocking the lower court's decision. a unanimous three judge appellate panel prevented those digital IDs from Chapel Hill from being accepted as a valid form of voter identification during the twenty twenty four general election. Democrat board member, one of the Democrat board members said at the Friday meeting, quote, the previous board made the correct decision to allow that ID, but the Court of Appeals order disagreed, and we are bound to obey that. And I think with all of the way that technology is changing about digital IDs, that this will not be the last word on this subject. Both Democrat board members Milam and Carmen both agreed with that statement, with the following board member Jeff Carmen, noting, quote, I too voted in support of that result of the court order.
It is not something that I'm in agreement with, but we know that we will see this again as we move towards digital driver's licenses and things of that nature. Republican member Bob Rucho said that he wasn't present for the earlier decision with the previous board as he was just appointed earlier this year, but said that the board should be required to follow the law, and when the General Assembly allows for changes or makes the change, they should institute it then. Carmen said that he agreed and noted that the law was a little vague on that matter. Looking at some comments from some other board members, the secretary of the board and board member Stacey Fohr Eggers noted, quote, I know this is something that our previous board disagreed with on how to handle. And of course, we do have the input from the appellate courts.
And ultimately, this is a resolution of this case. But I do believe from Ms. Millen's point that we will likely have this topic come up again, whether it is from a pronouncement from the General Assembly or otherwise as things progress and we move forward. And as always, this board will be called upon to make certain decisions. And I'm sure that there will be plenty of folks there to call us out if they disagree with us.
So that is the d latest details on that ongoing case between the North Carolina State Board of Elections, the RNC and the North Carolina Republican Party over digital IDs, agreeing with an appellate court decision. Those will no longer be accepted and a settlement in that case has been reached. The board also discussed early voting plans for the upcoming municipal elections later this year. First, early voting plans for Lee, Mecklenburg, and Forsyth counties for their September municipal elections were discussed. All three of those counties and their local board of elections are unanimously agreed in line with statutory requirements as well as Mecklenburg County, which added additional voting sites.
Since all of those plans were unanimous, the State Board of Election confirmed statutory compliance and approved them. The board also extended the deadline for the remaining states' 97 counties to get their October or November early voting plans in. They voted on July the 21st to set the deadline for counties hosting November and October elections to submit their early voting plans to the State Board of Elections as of August 8th.
However, the Board was informed that a few of the counties have not been able to meet the deadline for a variety of reasons or that some of them needed extra time to get their final decision. The board agreed to give an extra week and has now set the deadline to August the 15th, which will, of course, be coming up here on Friday.
Some considerations were also given because the boards in those counties were some of them were just sworn in as late as July the 22nd.
So giving those entities a little bit extra time to go through this process and figure out exactly what they are going to need to do as we head closer to those municipal elections coming up a little bit later on this year. The State Board of Elections continues to be, say, a relatively hot topic across North Carolina. We've got details on this Friday meeting and some of the other meetings over the last couple of months over on our website this morning at CarolinaJournal.com. In some other statewide news this morning, back-to-school shopping is projected to increase across North Carolina, according to a new study by the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association that was conducted by Appalachian State University Center for Economic Research and Policy Analysis. The forecast includes projections for June through September of 2025 to capture customers and consumers who buy for year-round schools and early shoppers.
Overall, retail sales in the 2025 back-to-school season are projected to total $84.54 billion. That's up over $3.5 billion or more than 4.3% from where that number was in 2024. Andy Ellen, the president and general counsel of the North Carolina Retail Merchant Association, will join us with some details on this study and talk about the impact of back-to-school. School shopping, tariffs, inflation, and the economy coming up here in a few minutes on the Carolina Journal News Hour. For the ones who get it done, the most important part is the one you need now, and the best partner is the one who can deliver.
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Who get it done? It's 535. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. Good Monday morning to you. Sports bettors in North Carolina wagered more last month than they did in July of 2024.
However, the state collected just $4 million in taxes. That's the lowest amount since the launch of legal sports betting in the state, as North Carolina had collected at least $6 million in taxes every month since the March 2024 launch of online sports betting. Operators pay an 18% tax on gross wagering revenues calculated as total amount wagered minus the total paid as winnings. The revenue total from the $370 million on paid and promotional wagers was $22.6 million. In July, the lowest total since sports betting launched.
That's according to new data from the North Carolina State Lottery Commission, which is responsible for doing the math and calculating the totals for online sports wagering. That means that betters had a good month with $344 million paid out as winnings. But there was a good sign for the industry. The total amount bet in paid wagers in July was up 10% from where it was in July of last year, which is a continued trend. In June, the amount bet was up 10% from where it was in June of 2024.
And outside of April, the total wagering revenue each month has ellipsed the total from the same month in 2024. North Carolina has collected more than $65 million in taxes from sports wagering betting operators this year. The state collected $105 million in taxes in 2024.
However, it's important to note that that started in March, both of those figures well ahead of projections made at the time that the law was passed, and it did go into effect. And as we get into the start of the NFL football season and the college football season, all analysts suspect that those rates will continue to go up as more and more folks will partake in some of those online sports wagering activities. We'll continue to track those trends and talk about the impacts of sports wagering and not only from a monetary standpoint, but from a state. State tax standpoint as it affects revenues here in North Carolina, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour and on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, where it's now 537, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. The back-to-school shopping season is a big boom for retail business across the state of North Carolina.
To walk us through some of those numbers and tell us more about that economic impact, it's my pleasure to welcome Andy Ellen from the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association. He is the president and general counsel to the Carolina Journal News Hour this morning. Andy, it's a big business for a retail industry as kids are packing up and getting ready to go back to school. You guys have a new survey out showing some of that. What are the numbers telling you?
Yes, so the Appalachian State University, their Department of Economics has recently conducted a study for us to analyze what the back-to-school shopping means to the North Carolina economy and means to retailers. And as you said, it's very important shopping season just behind the holiday season of Christmas time. And so we're really excited. We are seeing a dramatic increase, we believe, projection-wise, according to Appalachian State, as we head from June all the way through the end of the shopping season for back to school through September and some really positive numbers showing strong consumer confidence right now. And that, of course, is good news.
We know tariffs have been caused a lot of uncertainty, not only in the business sector, but in the retail shopping sector. Seems like, though, Andy, even regardless of some of those tariff uncertainties, people are going out and shopping, and some of those numbers are actually trending upwards, which is great news for not only North Carolina consumers, but for retail businesses across the state. Absolutely. I think it is a big bounce from where we saw last year in 2024. You know, usually when you have an election year, there's a lot of uncertainty at that point in time too.
And you have sales sort of consumer confidence oftentimes is down until the election is over.
So like in June and July, we're projecting about a 3.5% increase over last year in 2024. As we move through the summer towards the shopping, towards back to school, we're seeing growth in August of about 4% increase over 2024. And the big one is in September, as the very last kids are sort of making those last purchases, a 6% increase over last year, which is, again, a remarkable jump from 2024. And again, a real shot in the arm for the retail industry right now. Tariffs is one side of it.
The other is inflation. That curve continues to trend downwards. But Andy, you don't have to go back that long. Just a couple of years ago when we had inflation averaging about 9.5%, it's putting a big squeeze on middle-class Americans. As that's trended down, it looks like some of those retail sales are going up.
So it seems like that's a win-win for everybody involved. That is a win-win on the inflation dropping on a number of items. I think also you see some reduction in gas prices as well. And that, you know, if you're filling up your tank or you're buying other things for kids, that's a big piece of the economic equation as well. The tariff stuff is playing out.
I think it'll play out a little bit more later in the year because generally retailers order their goods six months in advance. And so some of them had already made the purchases for the back-to-school items before those started getting applied in some of these matters. We are seeing projections for items like shoes and clothing, which are often items that are bought for back-to-school. that those will be increasing with the tariffs as we go forward. For folks that check out national news, they may have seen over the last couple of weeks some discussion about a sales tax holiday.
This, of course, lining up with the back-to-school season.
Some of our neighboring states have that in effect. North Carolina does not. Does that impact some of the back-to-school shopping? And are we bleeding money to our neighboring states where folks can go down there and not pay that sales tax? I think we are bleeding some.
You know, we have 40 border counties in North Carolina, you know, whether that's in the Wilmington area or the Charlotte market or the western part of the state. And the states that surround us, Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, all have a sales tax holiday on items like computers and clothing and those sort of things. And so we do see a lot of advertising cross-border to draw those consumers across, especially if you're in a bordering county.
So that is certainly an economic factor. I think our retailers in North Carolina try to do really hard, do a really good job of trying to discount items that they know consumers are going out to purchase. They know you're only going to buy one computer. They know you're only going to probably buy one pair of tennis shoes for the kids.
So they're trying to figure out a way to get their prices enough to make it where you don't have to put gas in your car and go across the border. But it does have an impact on the sales in North Carolina. I know there was some discussion earlier this year in the North Carolina General Assembly to reinstitute something like this. It had been in place in years past. Have you been tracking the progress on that over at the North Carolina Retail Merchant Association?
Yes, you know, the House included a sales tax holiday in their budget that passed the House with some bipartisan support, and it had not been included in the Senate budget. We don't know really where that stands right now because, as you know, the General Assembly sort of had an impasse with a larger budget. They did pass sort of a mini-budget last week to fund the items that had to be funded in order for continuing state government operations.
So that will remain to be seen how that plays out going forward. We had a sales tax holiday in North Carolina through 2013. It was repealed at that point in time, along with another tax credits to lower the corporate income tax and the personal income tax, utilizing those monies from those items like sales tax holiday. But we'll see. We're continuing to advocate for that.
We'll see how that plays out as we go forward. Tell us about this partnership with Appalachian State to get some of this data done. Is that an important piece of what you guys do? Yeah, I think in this world we live in today, data is so important, no matter what kind of work you're in. And what we had found was a lot of times we didn't have the data that we could share with our members on what to expect with back-to-school shopping, holiday shopping, those sort of things, as well as with the media to give a good lens to what was happening economically in North Carolina.
We were relying more on national data, and we felt it was very important to tell our story, especially as we try to make sure we have consumers going back into stores and being in those stores, that our retailers know what is happening, what the trends are, as well as policymakers know what the trends are with economics. And so we are really proud to partner with Appalachian State University. The associate professor of economics, Imran Arif, has done a really good job for us on this. And we'll be having some more of these economic reports coming out as we go through the year, both on the holiday season, but also on things of the total economic impact of the retail. Industry, which is about one in four jobs, and is a major economic driver in our state.
Yeah, no question about that. A massive economic driver. Andy, quickly tell us about the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association. What are you guys doing day in and day out?
So the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association was founded in 1902, so we're coming up on our 125th anniversary. We are comprised of retailers in all 100 counties and all a number of trade divisions, whether that's pharmacy, grocery, hardware, department store, electronics, bookstores, bottle shops, wine shops. Anybody in that retail space is a member of ours. We're sort of a, not sort of a homogeneous group. We're more of a heterogeneous with a very diverse group of retail members in our association.
And they utilize, they are comprised of one-store operators all the way to the biggest retailers in the world. Our main purpose is to advocate before the North Carolina General Assembly to make North Carolina the best state in the country to operate a retail business. Andy, where can folks read some more details on this back to school survey that we're talking about this morning and find out some more information about what you guys are doing? We will have it on our it's on our website at www.ncrma.org.
So that's ncrma.org, and we have that study out there right now on the web. We appreciate the insight this morning. Andy Allen joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. You can also read more details on that study. We've got an article linked up on our homepage this morning, CarolinaJournal.com.
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Okay. Good morning again. It's 552. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110, 99.3 WBT healthcare premiums for over 770,000. Individuals in North Carolina that take advantage of the North Carolina state health plan and their members in 2026 will be decided at a Board of Trustees meeting coming up on Friday.
That's August the 15th. They are likely to increase because they haven't increased in eight years. At the board's meeting in May, North Carolina State Treasurer Brad Briner said that cash reserves had been used to offset any changes to the plan, but noted that the plan is almost out of reserves, which is forcing them to move forward with raising some of those rates. He said at the meeting in May that premium increases for the lowest paid employees were only expected to rise $5 per month rather than the $20 per month that were originally projected when they met in February of this year, thanks to work by the SHP's team and federal subsidies. In addition, the plan's projected deficits, which are $570.
million in twenty twenty six and between eight hundred and nine hundred million dollars in twenty twenty seven made these changes necessary not only to premiums but for copays and deductibles as well which were voted on in May With the change for active and non-active Medicare members, those under the 70-30 plan would see their annual deductibles go from $1,500 a month for singles and $4,500 total for families to $3,000 and $9,000 respectively. Under the 80-20 plan, deductibles will go from $1,250 for singles and a little over $3,700 for families to $1,500 and $4,500 for those plans. Primary care office visits and specialty visits would also or no increase as well. The plan will also have a name change. The 70-30 plan will also now be known as the standard PPO plan, with the 80-20 plan now being called the PLUS PPO plan.
At yes, at a last week's Council of State meeting, State Treasurer Brad Breiner told the other members of the Council of State that there shouldn't be any surprise and that they should land where they thought they would. He also thanked the North Carolina General Assembly for helping fund the plan by passing their mini budget, which Democrat Governor Josh Stein signed into law late last week. Additionally, Breiner said that they have asked just about every provider in the state for lower rates and noted that many have agreed and that they are continuing to work on the rest to continue to bring those rates down. He also told the Council of State that a new partnership with a company called Lantern, which is a digital specialty care platform, will also benefit members of the state health plan. Breiner says that a new agreement with Lantern will offer members no-cost access to a vetted network of surgeons and specialists.
Lantern also provides personalized support through dedicated care advocates and nurse navigators while helping control costs for both members and the plan. Briner told the Council of State, quote, the state health plan is the largest private payer in the state. We have seven hundred seventy thousand people on the plan. They are price sensitive, no surprise, and we have better than Medicaid and Medicare.
So we're so we're sought after a source for patients for every provider in the state.
So we seek to take that and make receipts out of it to have better competition in the healthcare business. He said that is something that the healthcare business in general has been reluctant to embrace, noting that Lantern is going to help us do that. The idea is to have high quality providers compete for our business with the lowest price winning. We'll pass that low price on to the members of the state health plan in the form of no deductibles, no copays for major surgeries. That's what we're trying to cover with Lantern.
He added that the state health plan will experience a cost reduction material as a result and that the receipts are where everybody wins, including providers, because the plan brings tremendous volume to them as well. The treasurer noted, quote, Lantern is a great partnership and we're excited to begin with that. We will announce results and who benefited from the preferred access to our members over time, but it will get us to a better expense trajectory, which has always been the goal of the state health plan.
So, that meeting with those finalized rates for those PPO plans will be coming up on Friday. We'll have continued coverage of that meeting on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, and of course, bring you the latest details as we get them right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Well, that's going to do it for a Monday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on News Talk 1110 and 99.3, WBT.
