While most news outlets have focused on South Carolina’s record 12.3% unemployment rate number, it’s the numbers lurking behind that gaudy statistic that should have Palmetto State residents up in arms.
Let’s start with the big number … 100,000.
If job losses continue at their current pace, South Carolina will lose its 100,000th job of the current recession this month, according to data compiled by the S.C. Employment Security Commission.
November’s 5,896-person increase in unemployment has brought the total of current recessionary job losses in South Carolina to 95,200. Obviously, though, you have to add those people to the 170,000 South Carolinians who were unemployed in December 2007 when the recession started to get the total number of unemployed.
That number? 266,330.
Staggering …
Of course, the unemployment rate is only part of the problem. An additional quarter million South Carolinians are classified as “underemployed,” meaning they are working part time to make ends meet or have given up searching for a full-time job.
What’s that rate? It’s over 20%, people … and could reach as high as 24% in 2010.
Again, simply staggering …
Worse still, nearly half of South Carolina’s recessionary job losses have come after the passage of the so-called “stimulus,” which has dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the state’s government bureaucracies with absolutely no impact whatsoever on the economy as a whole.
Speaking of government, while the private sector has been bled dry by the recession, government has emerged no worse for the wear. In fact, the ranks of the bureaucratic hordes have actually swelled during the downturn.
In December 2007, when the recession began, there were 346,500 government positions in the state (out of a workforce of 2 million).
Today? The number of government jobs stands at 350,800 – a 4,300-job increase.
By Rick taylor December 21, 2009 at 12:01 pm
The stimulus works two ways. The number one recipient of stimulus money in the entire country is Savannah River Site in Aiken County. Without that money, Aiken would be Allendale – 20%+ unemployment. Not that we’re not heading there anyway.
By Yep December 21, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I’m like many…spending less and putting as much away as possible because I fear I or my wife could be the next in the unemployment lines. While collecting unemployment for the short term wouldn’t hurt, it’s the prospect of the long term effect on our savings, our family and our mental well-being.
Times are tough. While pointing out the effect or lack there of the Stimulus might be valid, I don’t think we, as a state or country, would be better off had the stimulus never been passed.
I think we were going down this road for quite sometime and while I don’t want to lose my job or home, and I don’t look forward to finding a way to ‘make ends meet,’ I think some of this had to happen because things can’t stay good forever.
By bondwooley December 21, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Just because we’re unemployed doesn’t mean we have to stop living like Americans!
http://bit.ly/ozqT6
(satire)
By Just a thought December 21, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Without the stimulus funds, this state would be in a worse place. Even if the stimulus created no jobs, it did save some from losing thiers. Not perfect, but better than the alternative. Business cannot hire to unless there is a market for thier goods. There is no expanding US or foreign market and the remaining market is contracting as more employees are excessed, remain un/under-employed.
By Liberty For Me December 21, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I dont know the exact number of jobs lost.But we have nothing to fear.Lindsey Graham has said he is willing to give all the men he can jobs.
I think we all know he could probably handle the whole state in a week.
Thats without using his hands…
By WorkingTommyC December 21, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Stimulus funds just blew the bubbles bigger before they pop(ped).
You also have to take into account the fact that it takes several times as much money for the federalis to “create” a job for a specific length of time than it does to just give the money to those that are employed. Either way, the national debt hole/hyperinflation risk just got a lot bigger.
How about this for “not perfect:” let the free market be truly free to go up and down as it pleases. Such NORMAL economic cycles, in addition to having REAL money in our pockets, are much less painful to normal people. Unfortunately for the likes of Lindsey Gaham and his neo-con friends, a truly American system like that does not reap the huge megabucks for the corporatist elites who, along with the political elites, brought this s***storm down on top of us as they rode the bubbles as long as they could.
By Martha Washington December 21, 2009 at 8:31 pm
266,330 total jobs lost?
First, this number does not include all of the self-employed tradesemn who lost not just jobs, but entire businesses, due to the illegal alien invasion that peaked in 2007 right before the building boom died. They were underbid by thier “friends” who hired aliens who received on the job training, cash on paydays, and a ticket to ride. This demographic is NEVER MENTIONED. I have lost business because these folks lost business – about 50% of my overall customer base is out-of-business.
Second, the fact that so many South Carolinians work for one government or another is daunting. Consider that their checks are direct deposited/ They couldn’t refuse to pay taxes if they were so inclined. And with the Hatch Act, they can’t talk politics. Let’s just call them slaves; slaves to Big Brother.
Finally, this 266,000 number sounds an awful lot like the one counting illegal aliens in the state. Although Diane Salzar of a Latino group in Charleston stated a few years ago (paraphrased) “There are 500,000 “undocumented immigrants in SC and MOST OF THEM VOTE”.
How does that make you feel…warm and fuzzy? It makes me want to strangle Bobby Harrel and the SC Chamber of Commerce.
By SnakeMD December 21, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Some people believe that this current bubble was building for many years and it was inevitable that it was going to burst. The stimulus package is actually prolonging the decline/recession and that our “system” needed a correction. And this correction has not occurred. How far must we go down to “reboot” the system? I don’t know. I do know a lot of people who are saying God, guns, and gold. (maybe I need some new friends?) I’m really trying, but I see the glass as half full. Fact: The banks are not lending to those who can jump start this economy. Why?
By Martha Washington December 22, 2009 at 1:23 am
I believe that the housing bubble was to be followed in February 09 of the fall of the Federal government. They have been doing whatever they can to prop it up since. Meanwhile they are all in a freefall with the globalists-like two crows fighting in mid-air. Some politicians are complicit, some are terrified, others are being threatened. Some are ignorant to the reality.
The banks aren’t lending becuase they are intentionally trying to put us all on one level-no middle class. The illegal immigration invasion is simply the importing of third world country citizens, habits, views and problems. We are “one world” remember? The US has “had it good for too long”. The blacks want reparations. Heck the Jews want reparations from Germany among others. The US has some of the strictest enviro-laws and look how they are plotting to make us pay the most. Talk about getting blood from a turnip! We are the turnip and we are ANEMIC! Go 3-G’s!!
By Terry Knott December 28, 2009 at 7:43 am
This unemployment is unsustainable. Just for the fun of it, I ask what you people want to do? Your voice might not make a difference, but what do you men and women on the street suggest be done? As I see it there are 2 choices: make unemployment last as long as it’s needed (for years if necessary) OR repeal NAFTA and all those other free-trade agreements that have made big business a fortune and hurt the workers. Before you come at me with charges of socialism and communism, I would remind you that one day, you could be getting that pink slip. Enough of this unemployment. Make business in South Carolina and the United States attractive to business leaders so they will bring quality and a living wage to the American workers. If that’s socialism, let’s stand together for our own interests.