South Carolina’s jobless rate has hit its highest point in 15 years, forcing the state to write so many unemployment insurance checks that the account is about to go broke.
The state’s unemployment rate spiked to 7.6 percent in August, according to the S.C. Employment Security Commission. Right now, the agency is paying more than $10 million in unemployment insurance benefits every week, about twice as much as in recent years.
The fund has only about $130 million left.
“You do the math,” said Executive Director Ted Halley. “Even if we drop below the 7.6 percent rate, I estimate that it will go broke about the second week in January.”
Money flows into the fund from South Carolina businesses, which pay taxes on the first $7,000 of each employee’s annual salary. Halley said he’s meeting with Gov. Mark Sanford’s office Monday to discuss raising the tax rate.
Read it all from the front page of our local paper yesterday.
ugh, three of the applications I have in for Library jobs are in South Carolina!