By FITSNews || The S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce (DEW) – our state’s newest alphabet soup agency – cut 50,000 unemployment benefit checks and made 20,000 direct deposits and debit card transactions this week.
That means roughly $41 million is headed into the pockets of South Carolinians who have been unable to find work for extended periods of time.
The checks were cut just days after the U.S. House approved a massive $34 billion extension of unemployment benefits – which is designed to cover six months worth of payments to the long-term unemployed. The allocation was controversial – not because of where the money was going, but because President Barack Obama and his Congressional allies chose to add the expense to our nation’s soaring deficit rather than pay for it out of unspent “stimulus” funds.
More than 130,000 South Carolinians have lost jobs in the private sector during the current economic recession. Meanwhile, government entities in the Palmetto state have added 25,000 positions.
That has been the sad legacy of the $2 billion in “stimulus” funds shipped to South Carolina over the last two years.
Now … will this $41 million empower South Carolina’s consumer economy?
We doubt it.
Odds are most of this money will go to landlords and public utilities as recipients seek to catch up on bills. That’s hardly the “Christmas in July” for retailers that DEW officials predicted on Monday.
Or who knows? Maybe Gov. Mark Sanford’s new workforce director knows something we don’t …
Hopefully it won’t go to crack rock … which (let’s face it) was a major problem for the last agency that doled out unemployment benefits in this state. In fact, South Carolina businesses are having to pick up a $900 million tab due to epic mismanagement at the old S.C. Employment Security Commission.
