Unemployment Computers

By: Brandon Parris | News Channel 7
Published: December 02, 2009

The SC Employment Security Commission's main priority should be to make sure SC unemployed families have enough money to survive on and to try to bring more jobs to SC. Over the past few years, they seem to have forgotten their main priority. Their new goal seems to be making sure themselves have money and to make it easier for big companies to avoid OSHA regulation while forgetting about the priorities of it's own residents. I lost my job back in March because my employer quit accepting doctor's notes. I have a family of five and four of us had the flu, I called in sick and took us to my children to the doctor only to learn that my group insurance plan would only cover one of them. The next day I was fired. It took me two months to get my unemployment benefits started because the state denied me an appeal against the employer. My benefit checks ran out of money after three months, and I had to get an emergency extension. During the month of November I have rushed and rushed and borrowed money from relatives to get our bills caught up through December to get my children Christmas gifts. Now that I have all of the bills out of the way or deferred, the employment security commission has a computer malfunction. Now I cannot get christmas for my children. I don't think that this is a good time for the state to forget about it's residents considering the impeachment hearings for the governor, the Ravenel cocaine scandal, or the economy itself. What about other families who are even worse off than we are? This money is needed for our kids to still have christmas spirit left through all of this chaos. I already know that even if this does last only two weeks, we will not get reimbursed and will only have $191 dollars to buy three kids christmas gifts this year, with the rise in toy costs at the same time. Has the SCES done it's job? I think it's time to put someone else in charge of handling our misfortunes, someone who has actually been there, someone who may actually care.