|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
South Carolina’s chronically low labor participation rate inched up modestly during June 2024, but remained stuck at historically low levels – and continued to lag well behind the national rate.
That meant the Palmetto State’s jobs economy continued limping along despite its uniparty politicians approving yet another record expansion of the size and scope of state government.
Labor participation refers to the size of a state’s workforce. It is the percentage of its population that is either employed or actively in search of work. Unlike the widely watched unemployment rate – which tracks a segment of workers within the labor force – labor participation tracks the size of the workforce itself.
In other words, it provides a much better indicator of the extent to which people are gainfully employed … or, as is too often the case in South Carolina, not.
Last month, labor participation in the Palmetto State stood at 57.3 percent – up 0.1 percent from the previous month. That’s according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Nationally, labor participation also increased by 0.1 percent to 62.6 percent, per the BLS.
Thanks to our incomparable research director Jenn Wood, here’s a historical look at the data …
***
***
As you can see, South Carolina’s workforce has steadily eroded in the years since “Republican” (a.k.a. uniparty) rule began. In fact, this metric began dipping from its peak of 68.5 percent right around the time the GOP takeover of state government began. Labor participation has not eclipsed the key 60 percent demarcation line since May 2012, former governor Nikki Haley’s second full year in office. When Haley left office in January 2017, labor participation in the South Carolina had plunged all the way down to 58.2 percent.
Last month, South Carolina was tied with New Mexico for the third-worst labor participation rate in the entire nation. Only Mississippi (54 percent) West Virginia (55.1 percent) fared worse.
South Carolina has a rapidly expanding population … but a historically stagnant workforce.
Why the disconnect? Politicians, bureaucrats and their apologists have attributed this historic decline exclusively to our aging population. In fact, in December 2022 the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce (SCDEW) commissioned a report which purported to explain away the issue.
“One of the primary takeaways from (the) report was how central South Carolina’s aging population is to this issue,” agency economist Erica Von Nessen stated. “Between 1994 and 2019, the share of our state’s population age 65 or older nearly doubled. This fact alone explains most of the decline in South Carolina’s labor force participation rate in that time.”
Is that true, though?
***
South Carolina does have an older population than most states. An estimated 18.7 percent of its citizens are over the age of 65, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 estimates. Among the fifty states, South Carolina ranks No. 10 in terms of its senior population.
The problem? With the lone exception of West Virginia, every single state with an older population than South Carolina has a higher labor participation rate – and several of these states had rates which have increased during the same period ours was falling off the map.
For those of you keeping score at home, there were an estimated 2,499,877 people in the Palmetto State’s labor force during the month of May (+9,776) – including 2,410,144 people who were gainfully employed (+3,632) and 89,733 people who were unemployed but actively looking for work (+6,100). The uptick in that latter number caused the state’s unemployment rate to climb 0.2 percent for the second straight month to 3.6 percent – its highest reading since September of 2021.
The recent uptick in unemployment is concerning, but as I have frequently noted the real problem South Carolina faces is “the long-term languishing of labor participation.” Try as our uniparty politicians might, that problem is not going to be solved by expanded bureaucratic profligacy.
While SCDEW’s 2022 report tried to solely pin the blame for this problem our state’s rising senior population, it did briefly mention that the top barrier to workforce reentry listed by the South Carolinians it surveyed were “low-paying jobs.”
At last, some honesty. And as we all know, the first step in truly fixing a problem is to admit you have one …
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
***
WANNA SOUND OFF?
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to address proactively? We have an open microphone policy! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
1 comment
Glad to finally see FITS make a meaningful recognition of the retiree impact on this metric…However, SC also has the third highest rate of married citizens in the nations (although sadly those stats are still generationally low)…and it’s a statistical and financial fact that in that scenario, there are more households in which can make it on one income. Would it account for 7 or 8 percentage points? No, but it could account for 1-3 percent of it. But so long as we have a culture that for the most part no longer feels any sense of shame for being on the dole, and the welfare basket of benefits is somewhat competitive to the basket of benefits from a decent honest job, this will be a nagging problem.