President lays out extra $400 a week for unemployment, but will North Carolinians see it?

Among other things, Trump laid out a plan to add $400 a week to people's unemployment checks, but the state office that would be responsible for sending that money out in North Carolina said Monday that it doesn't know how, or if, that will work.

All a spokeswoman for the state Division of Employment Security would confirm is that the state is waiting on guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Without the federal supplement, people in North Carolina get roughly half of what their salary was, up to a maximum of $350 a week.

Gov. Roy Cooper's administration questioned the wisdom of tapping money normally reserved for natural disasters, calling it "a bad way to help the unemployed, especially when forecasters predict high hurricane activity."

"Congress needs to set aside partisanship to restore unemployment payments and fight the pandemic," Cooper spokeswoman Dory MacMillan said in an email.

It's possible Congress will do just that and pass a broader relief bill, mooting most of Trump's executive actions. Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina pointed the finger at Democrats Monday, saying their insistence on adding a litany of other issues to the relief bill derailed the process.

"President Trump was left with no choice but to find ways to provide relief to Americans who have fallen on hard times, including providing additional unemployment assistance," Tillis said in a statement. "While the President took some important steps, he’s limited in what he can do, and it’s simply not enough."

The president's executive actions also seek to defer student loan payments, delay at least some evictions and defer payroll tax collections. Democrats seized on that last issue, accusing the president and Republicans of seeking back-door cuts to Social Security and Medicare, since that's what payroll taxes support.

The president's executive order on evictions could cause confusion, according to people who advocate on the issue.

"It is generally somewhat vague," said Pamela Atwood, director of the North Carolina Housing Coalition. "It doesn’t extend the previous evictions moratorium. ... If anything, it’s just providing confusion because people hear that there’s an executive order stopping evictions, but whether anything’s happening on the ground, that’s questionable.”

Democratic 4th District Congressman David Price called the president's executive actions "a smokescreen – providing no real long-term stability or protections during this pandemic."

"Families won’t find rental assistance or timely unemployment support, nor will they find assistance for their children’s schools or any new testing and tracing efforts for their communities," Price said in a statement. "President Trump failed to confront the public health crisis, and now he’s failing to comprehend the magnitude of the economic crisis.”