SC Lawmakers Passed Up Getting Millions More for Unemployment Benefits

South Carolina lawmakers got a lot of attention two weeks ago when they went back to Columbia just to change a law to qualify the state for about $40 million from Washington to extend unemployment benefits. But what didn’t get attention was the fact that they could have gotten even more, a total of about $100 million, but passed on the opportunity.

“I actually drafted an amendment that would’ve allowed this to be tacked onto what we were considering already with the unemployment benefit package but, unfortunately, I was asked not to pursue it because we simply, they felt we simply didn’t have time to push it all through in this abbreviated session,“ Rep. Joe Neal, D-Hopkins, says.

House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham, R-Cayce, says it’s a very complicated issue and lawmakers did not have time to debate it the way they needed to. And while the money they acted to get was about to be lost, the rest of the money, about $60 million, will be available for more than a year, Rep. Bingham says, based on what he was told by the U.S. Department of Labor.

He was told, “That money has been set aside for your state if you make these changes and you have until 2011 to make those changes and then you’ll get that money, because those are one-time payments and pots of money,“ he says.

The changes that would have to be made include changing the way the state calculates unemployment benefits and extending unemployment benefits to part-time workers, who don’t qualify now.

Bingham says lawmakers shouldn’t agree to give part-time workers unemployment benefits until they know how much it would cost the state in the long run. Even though Washington would provide a pot of $30 million to pay those benefits now, getting that money requires a permanent change in state law. Once that pot of money is gone, the state would still have to pay those benefits, which would likely require raising the unemployment insurance tax on businesses. “We may get $30 (million) and it may cost us $100 million,“ he says.

Rep. Neal’s amendment originally included extending benefits to part-time workers, but he says he removed that part once concerns were raised about the impact on business. But he wants to give unemployment benefits to workers who have to quit their jobs because their spouse gets a job in another town. Right now, only military spouses qualify for unemployment if they have to quit because of a transfer.

“The government feels that now, in this current environment, because so many people are having to relocate in order to find work and working spouses are losing their jobs through no fault of their own, that they ought to be able to access these funds as well,“ he says.

Martin Salazar of Columbia has already exhausted his unemployment benefits. His wife works, but most of the job prospects he’s applying for are out of town. “So we leave, she’ll have to end up giving up her job, and here I am trying to find one, and she can’t get her benefits,“ he says.

Rep. Neal’s amendment would also add $15 per dependent child to the benefits checks of those who qualify.

He plans to bring it up when lawmakers go back into session in January.