State lawmakers will be returning to Columbia on Tuesday, October 27 to extended unemployment benefits for an additional seven weeks.
The above from my previous post. BTW 7 weeks amounts to a piss hole in the snow.
State legislators head back to Columbia next Tuesday for a special session to change a law that could possibly extend federal unemployment benefits for 20 more weeks.
The money that would be used to fund the extension is from federal stimulus funds.
When South Carolina's unemployment rate reached a certain percentage in March, the state became eligible to use stimulus money to extend unemployment benefits.
That didn't happen because lawmakers failed to change a technical issue in the law.
Florence resident Leon Shaw is at the unemployment office again.
He's been there nearly every week since he lost his job last year.
In a few weeks, he will lose his unemployment benefits.
"That's a bad feeling, kind of feel like you're stuck," said Leon Shaw.
That's where Lawmakers hope to help next Tuesday.
"We need to go back and fix the state law that we tried during the employment security commission reform," said Representative Kris Crawford from Florence County.
Last session, lawmakers didn't deal with a technical issue in the law that would change how they calculate the number of people in South Carolina who are out of work and collecting unemployment checks.
Presently, the way it's calculated doesn't allow South Carolina to use federal stimulus funds to extend unemployment benefits.
"If we go over there and do the technical fix then we should be eligible to draw down the federal funds for unemployment," Rep. Crawford continued.
That would extend benefits by 20 more weeks for those who will soon face losing their benefits or who haven't received a check since March.
Leon Shaw wants lawmakers to do the right thing, "Being the holidays and everything coming up that'll give hope. Kind of count on that for my kids and everything," he said.
Shaw says he will be watching and waiting on Tuesday.
Congress is also working on a bill separate from the state issue that could extend benefits for another 14 weeks for all states, and six weeks beyond that in states with particularly high unemployment.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
