North Carolina’s deeply discriminatory HB2 will cost the state more than $3.76 billion in lost business over a dozen years. That is according to a new analysis just published by the Associated Press.
Over the past year, states the report, North Carolina has suffered financial hits ranging from scuttled plans for a PayPal facility that would have added an estimated $2.66 billion to the state’s economy to a canceled Ringo Starr concert that deprived a town’s amphitheater of about $33,000 in revenue. The blows have landed in the state’s biggest cities as well as towns surrounding its flagship university, and from the mountains to the coast.
NC Gov. Roy Cooper said he will continue to work to get House Bill 2 off the books. “[HB2] is costing us hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs,” said Cooper. “We have to get it off our books.”
Reaction to the report from the Human Rights Campaign and Equality North Carolina was swift.
“In light of the AP’s jaw-dropping new economic analysis, every North Carolina lawmaker should have to answer a simple question: Is discrimination worth nearly $4 billion dollars?” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “In addition to the personal suffering this bill has caused LGBTQ people over the last year, it has already inflicted incredible damage upon the state’s economy. It’s time for lawmakers to fully repeal HB2 once and for all, because the price of their inaction is simply too great.”
“Before I was an advocate, I worked in economic development, and I find this number is extraordinary,” said Equality North Carolina Executive Director Chris Sgro. “This number is extraordinary not just because it represents billions in economic harm, but because we know underneath there is an untold story of incredible damage that North Carolinians will suffer for decades to come if we don’t fully repeal HB2. It is frustrating, and must be infuriating to North Carolinians, that Phil Berger and Tim Moore cannot put aside their political egos and instead insist on inflicting this kind of harm on their constituents.”
Read the full report here.
