COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A top South Carolina Senate Republican won approval Tuesday for a bill that gives employers tax breaks to spur hiring of the state's unemployed.
The Senate Finance Committee unanimously sent a bill to the Senate floor that would give employers tax credits of $1,200 a year for hiring someone drawing unemployment benefits.
South Carolina's 10.2 percent unemployment rate in February tied with Mississippi and Oregon as the nation's sixth highest. The proposal would cost the state $94 million in tax collections during the next two fiscal years. Employers would be able to take the $100-per-month credit for two years.
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Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler said the costs would be offset by the formerly unemployed paying income taxes and coming off the state's unemployment rolls. "And the intangible thing is people having a job and accomplishing something. I think it makes good common sense taking people off the unemployment rolls and putting them on payrolls," said Peeler, a Gaffney Republican.
Sen. Phil Leventis, a Sumter Democrat, said the legislation didn't provide incentives for hiring people who aren't drawing unemployment benefits and reducing tax collections while the state still has financial problems.
Regardless of that, Sen. Billy O'Dell, a Ware Shoals Republican, said legislators need to spur hiring.
"We certainly need to get these unemployed people working if it's at all possible," O'Dell said.
Peeler first proposed the bill in 2009 but it died in the House as legislators worried about costs as the state revenues fell in the midst of a slow recovery from the recession.
"I hope this time they'll look on it favorably," Peeler said. "I think there'll be more than enough support in the Senate to get it through the Senate again."
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