In South Carolina, Sanford Extends Unemployment Benefits
How bad is the country’s long-term unemployment problem? Well, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) — who made headlines this year for (among other things) initially refusing federal stimulus money — signed legislation today extending jobless benefits under the stimulus bill.
The Associated Press reports that the bill provides “at least seven weeks of federal extended jobless benefits for South Carolina workers who already had begun losing weekly checks.” And it fixes a legislative glitch that had restricted those benefits:
“„The Legislature needed to change the rules to collect the extra benefits so that they are triggered by the state’s unemployment rate rather than the number of people drawing unemployment benefits.
Meanwhile, there’s been no word of an agreement on that other unemployment extension bill — the one stalled in the Senate for the past three weeks.
