SC blows chance at extending jobless benefits

http://www.thestate.com/statewire/story/986683.html

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Some extended jobless benefits are being lost in South Carolina because leaders failed to make a technical law change, leaving tens of thousands of people ineligible unless legislators return to Columbia to deal with the issue.

Calls for legislators to return before January came Friday as an Employment Security Commission member fumed the agency's director dropped the ball and didn't let legislators or his commission know what needed to be done.

The issue is getting attention now as 6,900 of the state's unemployed head into the weekend with no hope for now of the weekly checks that help cover rent and food.

They'll join 113,078 people who already have exhausted state benefits and federal extensions and add to the misery of South Carolina's 11.5 percent jobless rate - the nation's sixth highest.

The federal government made stimulus money available for the extended benefits to states that tie emergency jobless relief to the unemployment rate. South Carolina's emergency payments are instead tied to people receiving jobless checks.

South Carolina's share of the extended benefits money wouldn't be dropping if lawmakers had passed a measure temporarily changing how emergency benefits are triggered.

Maybe I should head back to Oregon.