WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina | SC blows chance at extending jobless benefits

SC blows chance at extending jobless benefits

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - South Carolina leaders have fumbled plans to allow out-of-work residents to collect seven weeks of extended unemployment benefits, and calls are growing for the Legislature to address that problem.

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dwight Drake said Friday that legislators need to come back to Columbia to make sure workers can keep getting checks.

This weekend, 6,900 people will exhaust their state and federal benefits. Unless legislators here or in Washington address their problems, they'll lose the cash that helps them pay for rent and food.

State Employment Security Commissioner Becky Richardson says 113,078 South Carolinians already have exhausted state benefits and federal extensions.

The state Democratic Party blamed the Republican-controlled South Carolina House and Senate and the controversy surrounding Governor Mark Sanford's travel and extramarital affair for allowing the benefits to slip by.

"The GOP leadership in the General Assembly has been so busy engaged in an intraparty fight with Governor Mark Sanford over power and political ideology that they've forgotten about the thousands of South Carolinians that remain unemployed due to their disastrous policies over the last seven years,," said South Carolina Democratic Party Executive Director Jay Parmley. "You would think the Republican legislative leadership would realize their constituents are hurting and deserve more than just being just overlooked."

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