(RALEIGH) -- Democrats in the North Carolina Legislature continue their weeklong statewide tour to focus on what they call the negative effects of the state budget by listening to those affected by the plan pushed through by Republicans. Democratic Sen. Josh Stein is on the tour.

"We're going to be going all over the state, central, western and east to learn about what are the real effects of the budget cuts that the Republican majority enacted this summer.  There was a lot of debate about what the impacts were going to be and we just want to go out and find out what really is going on and it's been troubling what we've learned so far," said Stein.

Stein said thousands of job cuts in state government and education have occurred since the budget was approved. He added that the two parties need to work closer together to help get the economy moving and put more people back to work.