Why Did South Carolina’s Unemployment Rate Fall?
Although it is tempting to conclude that the federal stimulus—or, closer to home, the Boeing economic incentives deal—contributed to South Carolina’s slight decline in unemployment, this is not the case. Rather, the following two factors are what caused the marginal improvement in the state’s employment situation: • A significant drop-off in the number of people actually seeking employment • A massive spike in public sector hiring: particularly part-time Census workers Discouraged Workers Dropping Out The unemployment rate only accounts for workers who have actively sought employment over the past four weeks. This means that persons who have been unemployed for months and stopped looking are not counted as unemployed. (In 2009, it took 19.4 weeks—the longest search time in the nation, along with Michigan—to find a job in South Carolina.) Likewise, individuals who have moved to another state to look for work or been pushed into early retirement are not counted as unemployed. In other wo
