The Triangle's jobless rate was flat in December and down by a mere fraction for the year, indicating a stagnant job market in 2012, according to data issued by the N.C. Department of Commerce.

Triangle unemployment was at 7.7 percent in December, same as in November.

The Triangle gained 1,400 jobs last month.

December data show the greatest job gains in education and health services. The biggest losses were in government.

Barely a month after Progress Energy said it wanted to raise rates in North Carolina, the state Attorney General is jumping into the case.

The AG has a long history of involvement in utility matters over the years, but defers to another state agency, the Public Staff, to protect consumers. Attorney General Roy Cooper said that he has just one dedicated lawyer for utility matters, compared to dozens of attorneys, lawyers and engineers at the Public Staff.

Monday's one-paragraph legal notice filed with the N.C. Utilities Commission signals the regulatory body that the AG will press its case that corporate profit margins at public utilities must be held down during a prolonged economic downturn.

The AG lost the same argument this year before the Utilities Commission on Duke Energy's rate case. The AG has appealed and last week urged the N.C. Court of Appeals to throw out the Utilities Commission's approval of a 7.1 percent residential rate increase for Duke.

"When we see a situation that's important, we intervene," Cooper said. "We were concerned about double-digit profit margins in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression."
 

Progress Energy's North Carolina customers could be in for a slight rate reduction this year, thanks to the falling price of the fuels Progress uses for its power plants.

The Raleigh-based company told South Carolina regulators today it plans to cut rates in that state to account for falling fuel costs, largely attributable to record-low costs of natural gas. The change would reduce a typical residential bill by about $3.50 a month for that state's 175,000 customers.

Progress is expected to make a similar request in this state next month. While the cost factors from state to state are not identical, the South Carolina filing indicates that residential and business customers in this state would see a potential decrease as well.

The typical residential monthly bill is $106 in this state for Progress customers, based on 1,000 kilowatt hours of monthly usage. The company has 1.3 million customers in North Carolina.
 

The state's jobless rate remains exceptionally high according to an obscure federal government measure of unemployment that takes into account those who are under-employed and those who got discouraged and stopped looking.

Using this measure, known as the U6 index, North Carolina's jobless rate was 17.6 percent in the first quarter of the year. That's nearly twice as high as the statewide jobless rate of 9.7 percent reported in March under the widely used jobless measure that's commonly publicized.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issued the broader jobless measure this morning. The U6 is relatively new, not compiled until 2005, and it's issued every quarter, as opposed to every month.

Because the U6 index is a broader measure of unemployment some consider it to be the more accurate measure of economic health. The U6 is generally 75 percent higher than the standard measure that's much better known.

At its highest, North Carolina's jobless rate was 17.9 percent, as measured by the U6 for parts of 2011.
 

Two months after Duke Energy won a 7 percent rate increase from the N.C. Utilities Commisison, the state's Attorney General said he would appeal the ruling.

AG Roy Cooper opposed the rate increase when it was before the utilities commission. Charlotte-based Duke, under pressure to scale back its request, agreed to cut back the rate hike from the 15 percent the company originally requested.

Cooper will fight the increase at the N.C. Court of Appeals, according to our sister publication, The Charlotte Observer. He contends Duke's profit should be curtailed during tough economic times for its customers.

Duke has about 180,000 customers in Durham, Chapel Hill and the western Triangle, representing about 10 percent of its North Carolina customers.

The N.C. Utilities Commission this afternoon approved an overall 7 percent rate increase for Duke Energy's 1.8 million customers in the state, effective next month.

The commission largely adopted an earlier settlement between Charlotte-based Duke and the Public Staff, the state agency that represents consumers in utility rate cases.

Monthly bills for typical residential customers will go up about $7, as reported by our sister newspaper, The Charlotte Observer.

Duke has about 180,000 customers in Chapel Hill, Durham and other parts of the Triangle.

State unemployment dropped incrementally in December and came out virtually flat for the year even as the national jobless rate showed marked improvement.

North Carolina's jobless rate was 9.9 percent in December, down from 10 percent in November, according to numbers issued this morning by the Division of Employment Security in the N.C. Department of Commerce.

The 9.9 percent rate compares to 9.8 percent in December 2011, showing very little change for the past 12 months.

The national rate, meanwhile, was 8.5 percent in December, down from 9.4 percent a year earlier, nearly a full percentage point.

The Triangle jobs picture remained virtually unchanged in October from the previous month as the region's sluggish economy sputters into an unclear future.

The unemployment rate dipped to 8.7 percent in October, down from 8.8 percent in September, according to data issued by the N.C. Division of Employment Security and seasonally adjusted by Wells Fargo in Charlotte.

The Triangle jobless rate is now comparable to January 2010. Unemployment had entered a more promising interlude in past months during which it had fallen as low as 7.6 percent several times.

About 70,000 people in the Triangle were out of a job in October. If the region's economy had recovered and the jobless rate had fallen to 5 percent, then the number of unemployed would be about 44,000 now, said Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner.
 

Public hearings set to begin Monday on Duke Energy's proposed rate increase will affect 1.8 million customers in North Carolina, including about 170,000 in Durham, Chapel Hill and the western Triangle.

The N.C. Utilities Commission will consider a compromise between Charlotte-based Duke and the state's consumer advocate, known as the Public Staff, to limit Duke's rate increase to 7.2 percent.

As proposed, the compromise would raise a monthly residential bill of $97 to about $104 for a household that uses 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity.
 

Duke Energy and the state's consumer advocate have agreed to cut Duke's rate request by more than half just days before public hearings are set to begin in Raleigh on Monday.

Charlotte-based Duke, the state's biggest electric utility, and the Public Staff have agreed to cut the rate increase to 7.2 percent, which would add about $7 to a typical monthly residential bill of $97 a month.

The last-minute settlement aligns Duke and the Public Staff in a contentious case that has generated 1,100 protest letters from customers in the past two months alone. A number of towns and county governments have urged the N.C. Utilities Commission, which will decide the case, to consider the plight of state residents in the midst of one of the worst economic downturns in the past century.

The state's Attorney General, meanwhile, has vowed to continue fighting Duke's rate request. The Attorney General, who also represents state residents in public utility rate matters, has in the past taken a harder line than the Public Staff.

“A 7.2 percent rate increase is too much for working families and businesses during these tough economic times," according to a statement from the agency. "At the hearing, our attorneys will ask tough questions and urge the Utilities Commission to consider the impact on consumers.”