South Carolina has not equaled North Carolina in education, progressive politics, or the most important index -- college basketball. But it has in unemployment rates, according to federal and state labor statistics.

In May, for the first time in what seems like forever -- something that one academic deemed “historic” -- South Carolina actually had a lower unemployment rate than did the Great North State.

But before any party planners get revved up, the party poopers need to get a word in. South Carolina has since drawn even with North Carolina at 9.4 percent unemployment in June. And South Carolina’s rate was only marginally better for a mere month, and is still higher than the national average of 8.2 percent. And while South Carolina’s unemployment rate has dropped from tied for third-worst in the country last year, it is now tied with North Carolina for fifth worst.

 

Economic story

John Connaughton, an endowed professor of economics at UNC-Charlotte and the director of one of that Tarheel state’s leading economic forecasts, said the reason for the “historic” change wasn’t necessarily what South Carolina was doing right, but more what North Carolina wasn’t doing very well.

Connaughton praised South Carolina’s “aggressive” courting of outside business and economic development. He said North Carolina had not done as good a job at economic development as its neighbor to the south.

He added that residents of North Carolina have yet to realize how bad their state fared “in the recession and in the recovery” over the past four years. He said most of the jobs lost from Manteo to Murphy have been in manufacturing and construction. 

“Those jobs show no immediate signs of coming back,” he said.

Connaughton, reflecting on the mild reversals of fortunes, said he was surprised that North Carolina’s economic situation hadn’t become more of a “story” across his state.

Burnie Maybank, a major player in the South Carolina’s economic development since he was Gov. Carroll Campbell’s economic point man, also had high praise for the job South Carolina has done in the face of economic adversity.

Maybank said it’s impressive that South Carolina’s unemployment rate has dropped as much as it has since its peak two years ago of close to 12 percent, considering that the state remains one of the most desirable relocation destinations, ranking as high as third on at least one study.

Maybank also pointed out that unemployment rates may have been helped by immigration reform with many illegal migrant workers returning to their home countries, unable to find work on farms or construction sites across the region.

Maybank, former director of the state Department of Revenue, said some counties have “underemployment” rates, where qualified workers are taking jobs normally reserved for teenagers, because of economic realities.

More work to be done

There is grim news on South Carolina’s horizon. A recent report stated the number of jobs listed online has dropped across the state. Also, the federal government has put the state’s Department of Employment and Workforce on a watch for slow payment for first-time unemployment benefits recipients.

Gov. Nikki Haley made her campaign mantra “Jobs, jobs, jobs” before coming into office in January 2011. And so far, there have been impressive gains, according to observers, with special note of “white buffalos,” like Boeing in the Charleston area.

Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said today that the governor and her administration “focused from day one on bringing jobs to every part of South Carolina - - and the results speak for themselves: over 25,000 jobs have been announced since she took office. “

But, Godfrey said, Haley “knows there’s more work to do. She’s going to continue fighting to bring jobs to every part of South Carolina and lift up those counties and rural areas that have sometimes been overlooked.”

But how many jobs can the governor claim responsibility for, considering that all of the states in the region have followed roughly similar unemployment rate trajectories?  And that the surge in hiring actually began, according to federal numbers, back in 2010, a year before she took office?

Maybank said that governors, like the president, “can only do so much,” because the overall economies are so large and complex. But, Maybank said, her administration’s focus on landing job-rich distribution centers and manufacturing has been a good decision.

Crystal ball: With South Carolina’s unemployment increasing at summer’s end, many are worried that economists’ forecasts for a rosier autumn may be too rosy. What needs to happen is that Haley and her crew need to keep fighting for jobs, the legislature needs to keep giving the appropriate agencies the tools (read: money) to bring those jobs to the state, and residents need to realize that while the worst may be over, it’s not going to get a lot better for a while -- and won’t if everyone isn’t on the same page. That being said, we’re equal with North Carolina and better for a month. Huzzah!

Bill Davis is editor of Statehouse Report.  He can be reached at:  bill@statehousereport.com.

While there are no major legislative meetings scheduled for next week with members of the General Assembly likely more focused on reelection, there will be at least two events of note.

• Courts. The League of Women Voters of South Carolina will host a forum looking into diversity and independence in the state judicial system Tuesday at 7 p.m.  at the University of South Carolina School of Law Auditorium, located at the corner of S. Main and Greene streets in downtown Columbia.
  
  
• Energy. The State Regulation of Public Utilities Review Committee Energy Advisory Council will meet on Monday at 10 in 105 Gressette to discuss the draft documents submitted by the Nicholas Institute. Agenda.

Eighty-four percent of South Carolina’s public K-12 schools earned at least a “C” on the federal government’s new letter-grade system. The system replaces the No Child Left Behind guidelines of pass/fail.

Almost 75 percent of schools scored an A or a B, according to the state Department of Education, for the school year ending in June. But that does mean that one in 6, or roughly 16 percent, of every school in the state received either a D or a failing grade.

State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais last year called for the ending of NCLB, saying it was a broken system that flunks a school for failing in only one of a multitude of categories. This week, he said, ““Replacing No Child Left Behind with a law reducing the role of the federal government in education policy must be a top priority of the next administration. No Child Left Behind is broken and should have been replaced years ago.”

AUG. 3, 2012 -- O.K., so here’s a grand idea: For the time of the second biggest shopping period of the year after Christmas, enact a law for a tax giveaway to lure people to stores when they’re going to go anyway.

Well, it’s already a done deal called the state’s annual back-to-school sales tax holiday, the three-day weekend going on now during which families can save 6 cents in sales tax as well as extra local sales taxes on exempt school-related items, like paper, pens, pencils, clothing and shoes. Oh, and other things that don’t sound so school-related: towels, blankets, bed linens, shower curtains, adult diapers, bandanas, ski boots, corsets, furs, hunting vests, nightgowns, prom dresses, Scout uniforms, skin diving suits, tuxedos and waders.

Ladies and gentlemen, this sales tax holiday weekend is nothing but a gimmick. It was designed by politicians to make you believe you are getting a real big tax break when, in fact, you’re getting peanuts. 

Just look at the total amount of revenue the state doesn’t receive because it doesn’t collect sales taxes this weekend: $3 million, according to the state Department of Revenue. That’s 1/25th of 1 percent of  $6.6 billion in overall state tax revenues. While $3 million is nothing to blink at, it amounts to less than $1 per person in the Palmetto State. (Remember, the holiday applies to anyone in the state, not just families with school-age children, so there’s no reason that Granny can’t head to the big box store and load up on towels and new bedroom slippers.)

What rankles about the sales tax holiday from a practical perspective is that it’s just dumb. People generally are going to buy required school supplies and clothing for their children anyway. With the holiday, all of those people are going to crowd stores to get a small break -- when retailers may already be lowering prices to do the same thing that the state is trying to do with the holiday: lure people into stores to spend more money.

By Alexander Moore
Special to Statehouse Report

NOTE: Home House Press has just published “The Fabric of Liberty: The Society of Cincinnati of the State of South Carolina” by Alexander Moore. In this article exclusively for Statehouse Report, Moore explains why he wrote a book on the Society and why it is important today.

AUG. 3, 2012 -- The founding fathers of the United States and of South Carolina established the Society of the Cincinnati in 1783. As one of the original societies, the South Carolina Society has some distinctions -- occasionally ironic ones -- that appealed to me as a student of American history. 

The S.C. Society was the only Southern one of the original fourteen societies (the first 13 states and France) that has an unbroken history. That meant, ironically, it was active during the Civil War, a conflict begun in the Palmetto State that aimed to shatter the American Republic. 

South Carolina had not only the most loyal Cincinnati but also some of the Society’s most determined opponents. Immediately after the defeat of the Confederacy, only one S.C. Cincinnati resigned because he could not reconcile with his northern brethren. A year after Appomattox, the General Society (the national organization) invited S.C. Cincinnati to attend the national meeting in Trenton, N.J. Such has been the power of the Cincinnati since 1783 to heal drastic divisions within the state, and between the state and the nation. For nearly 250 years, Society principles have fostered justifiable state pride and allegiance to the Union. 

The notion that a tightly-knit heritage organization could keep all that together for so long and even in today’s overheated partisan political climate appealed to my interest as a student of consensus in history and to timorous optimism about the future of the American Republic. Certainly the Society’s motto, “Omnia relinquit servare Rempublicam” linked the history of the Roman Republic to the victorious American nation and the emerging state of South Carolina. 

George Washington and his fellow Continental officers who were the Society Original Members consciously emulated (emulate: “to strive to equal or rival a person, his achievements or qualities; or to copy or imitate with the object of equaling or excelling) Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the Roman soldier-citizen who rejected supreme power to return to his farm. 

The founders and successive generations were historians as well as citizen-soldiers. Their self-effacement and scholar-like definitions of duty and patriotism captured my attention.   I welcomed the opportunity to investigate how the Society’s principles of patriotism, fraternity and human liberty and the driving force of emulation had fared over two and a half centuries. I have concluded that they have fared well even to the present day. 

One of my overriding goals as a student-scholar is to promote knowledge of South Carolina’s colonial and revolutionary history. Those epochs were eventful and were also incubators of interesting developments in South Carolina political thought and of enduring cultural institutions. 

Those eras encompassed the lives of some fascinating personalities, many of whom were Cincinnati members. I am convinced that South Carolinians should devote more attention to those times and perhaps less attention to the state’s Civil War history. To do so might have the good effect of lowering the volume on some of today’s divisive rhetoric about state rights, the evils of the federal government, and maybe even some of the pernicious race and class talk that afflicts public discourse. 

The Cincinnati motto remains a call to active citizenship, not simply showing up at the voting booth and sporting yard signs. The call goes much farther, challenging all South Carolinians to seek distinction as citizens, not merely taxpayers, and to exercise the duties of antique citizenship to promote the public good instead of modern blind self-interest. 

Alexander Moore is a historian of colonial South Carolina, documentary editor and student of Southern art history. The former director of the South Carolina Historical Society, Moore is an acquisitions editor at the University of South Carolina Press and the author or editor of several works on Southern history.

Promptness. The feds have placed the S.C. Department of Employment on a watch list for how fast it remits first-time unemployment benefit checks. More.