This afternoon, Nikki Haley will speak to the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce. She will almost certainly once again ignore the reality of falling income, low economic mobility and the number of jobs South Carolina has lost to boast about her record as the self-proclaimed “Jobs Governor.”
But what the Chamber won’t hear her admit to is the truth of what their members are living each day: families and small businesses in South Carolina are struggling while Nikki Haley keeps stacking the deck against them.
Just in the last two weeks, another round of layoffs was announced in the Upstate – 100 jobs from the GE facility in Greenville – adding to other major losses around South Carolina:
- 100 Layoffs announced at GE Greenville facility. [Anderson Independent Mail, 9/25/13]
- SRR lays off 465 employees in Aiken. [Aiken Standard, 9/13/13]
- JP Morgan Chase closing SC office at loss of 450 jobs [AP, 8/13/13]
- MOX facility expecting to lay off 500 employees [SC Radio Network, 8/7/13]
- Midlands plant closing, 200 people losing jobs [WIS, 7/25/13]
- Haley’s jobs effort hasn’t reached McCormick County [Post & Courier, 7/15/13]
This adds insult to injury for a region still reeling from the loss of Bi-Lo’s corporate headquarters because Nikki Haley’s policies hurt existing in-state businesses:
- Bi-Lo a glaring example of why Nikki Haley’s economic approach is not working for South Carolina. Bi-Lo was a South Carolina company with its corporate headquarters in the Upstate. They grew and eventually became successful enough to acquire Winn-Dixie. But once the merger was complete, they moved their headquarters to Florida – taking with them hundreds of jobs and a good chunk of economic activity from the Upstate. All under Nikki Haley’s watch.
- 130 Lay Offs Announced for South Carolina BI-LO Employees. In March 2013 BI-LO Spokesman Brian Wright said “130 employees were being laid off starting next month because of the company’s merger with Winn-Dixie. Bi-Lo LLC bought the Jacksonville, Fla.-based grocery store chain in 2011 for $560 million.” [Associated Press, 3/26/13], [Jacksonville Daily Record, 5/13/13]
Meanwhile, life is only getting harder for middle-class families and businesses:
- Wages stagnant as households make less money than before recession. “South Carolina has seen a greater drop in real income than most states during the past dozen years, according to a Census Bureau report released Thursday morning… Only eight states saw a larger decline in household incomes, according to the Census Bureau, mostly in the deep South and upper Midwest.” [Post & Courier, 9/19/13]
- SC job market mired in 5-year rut. “Five years after the Great Recession began in earnest in South Carolina, the state’s jobless rate remains stuck. And the state’s jobless rate – 8.1 percent – is still a full percentage point higher than it was five years ago….Escaping the recession has been a challenge for the nation and South Carolina.” [The State, 9/20/13]
- Economist: Haley’s jobs approach gets SC “stuck in the mud.” “While the traditional strategy of business recruitment has landed some significant companies for South Carolina such as BMW and Boeing, the result is “we are still stuck in the mud, Vitner said Friday. While jobs are being created statewide, many pay low wages, he said.” [Rock Hill Herald, 9/20/13]
And that’s why hardworking, responsible middle-class families and small business owners have a harder time succeeding in South Carolina than almost anywhere else in the United States:
- South Carolina has one of the worst economic mobility rates in the country… South Carolina is one of the hardest places to achieve the American Dream, with the third worst economic mobility rate in the country. “Southern states, led by Louisiana and South Carolina, have the worst economic mobility in the country, according to a new study.” [Pew Center on the States, 5/10/12];
- …and is one of the hardest places in the nation to earn a living. South Carolina is the 5th hardest state in the nation to earn a living. “A combination of low wages and high unemployment have landed South Carolina in the bottom 10 twice before, and those conditions persist. In addition, people in the state gave it the country’s fifth-worst rating for quality of work environment.” [MoneyRates.com, 4/1/13
Nikki Haley is completely out of touch with the struggles facing middle-class families and small businesses as she continues to brag about her economic record and paint a rosy picture of her tenure as Governor. But it’s anything but a great day in South Carolina for middle-class families and small businesses.
South Carolina’s ready for a change.
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20 comments
She’ll blame it on Obama.
Nikki Haley only cares about Nikki Haley!
You Anglo’s just don’t get it, do you
The other kids didn’t know whether I was skins or shirt so while they were staring at my chest I shoved the ball up their asses and now that I am Governor y’all are still staring at my chest and I am still shoving the ball you your asses
Jesus Christ, you people are really a bunch of dumbassess
ps yes I can say Jesus Christ, cause I am a Methodist
“You Anglo’s just don’t get it”
lol…can’t say that I do….can’t say that I do….
LOL, bad timing on this one, SCDP, as you will see in a few hours.
She is also the most transparent Governor in the history of SC.
Transparent as in her greed and corruption is on open display.
That list of layoffs should’ve included Mood Media (formerly known as Muzak) from the Fort Mill, SC area. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/01/18/3794321/muzak-moving-jobs-out-of-fort.html
Chester paper reported that Allvac Richburg had another layoff last week. Axed 70 people.
*SC job market mired in 5-year rut. “Five years after the Great Recession began in earnest in South Carolina, the state’s jobless rate remains stuck. And the state’s jobless rate – 8.1 percent – is still a full percentage point higher than it was five years ago….Escaping the recession has been a challenge for the nation and South Carolina.”
If you are going to use data to attack someone, use the correct data.
Nikki Haley was not in office 5 years ago. Her term of office started January 12, 2011. Google has a neat app that graphs unemployment rates (Google search terms: south carolina unemployment rate.) According to this data, the unemployment rate peaked at 11.9% in Nov. 2009 – Jan. 2010. When Haley took office in Jan. 2011, the unemployment rate was 10.6%, and has since dropped 2.5% (Aug. 2013.)
The Google graph also show that the 8.1% SC rate is lower than the GA & NC rates of 8.7%. The Google graph also shows the SC rate higher during peak unemployment than GA & NC, and crossing crossing those lines to where is it now lower.
There are plenty of issues to pick to level criticism, including economic ones, but citing the unemployment rate statistic is not the right one. The unemployment rate may or may not be the best metric to judge job creation, but it is a standard methodology; all the other states use it.
Damn! Those graphs show that she has been riding Obama’s recovery this whole time. She’s so sneaky!
You missing the whole point about the jobs deal. Its Nikki Haley thats making such a big deal about it. I think she even reads newspapers to see if jobs are coming to an area and then announces like it is her jobs. Nikki Haley is making that her only claim to fame. If she tries to run on jobs and jobs alone – she is a one termer.
The point is that if you are going to criticize a politician, do it for the time they are actually in office. The graph show that the unemployment rate was climbing to almost 12% around the time that Mark Sanford was climbing the Appalachian trail.
Make that 1400 employees that got thier pink slips this morning at SRS…
I was reading some reports a couple of years ago about the national unemployment picture. Turns out that on a monthly basis there are millions of jobs lost and millions of jobs created, in the neighborhood of 6 to 8 millions. In good times the net difference would be a positive 300K to 400K and in bad times a minus 200K to 400K, in uncertain, unstable times such as the present a positive 100K to 250K, slower than the growth of the population of working age. South Carolina’s population is roughly 4.6M, 1.4% of the nation’s 330M, so I would expect that South Carolina would be loosing/gaining roughly 84K jobs a month, hopefully with a net gain. No one will ever prevent this from happening, in the best of times jobs will be lost and in the worst of times jobs will be created.
With regards to Bi-Lo, I’ll give the Democrats that one. Had we had a better business environment they might not have left and maybe even created additional jobs, or drew some in from Florida. We give out of state businesses tremendous incentives to move here and stiff the ones already employing South Carolinians. There was that company in Warrenville several years ago, that suffered from the chlorine spill from the train wreck and asked Mr. Sanford for a $1M “incentive” but was told “no”. They had to shut down and put 250 people on unemployment. That’s at least $1/4 million a month for unemployment, 4 months of unemployment easily ate up the million they were asking for. Give in state companies the “incentives” if anyone but better yet make the business environment business friendly.
NIKKI,
YOUR STANDING UP TO WHATS RIGHT.
AND THE COUNTRY IS WITH YOU.
’bout time she stood up, never thought she was ever going to get off her knees
do any of you idiot have a clue about business
did you forget Boeging is investing a billion dollar in SC in spite of effort of our hapless community organizer presbo
I recently called the Governors office and spoke with a woman 3x my age, she became a little enraged in her tone, since I was questioning the lack of funding in the state when Nikki is in Greenville having parties on tax payer dollars. The little lady said “saying there is no money is the name of the game.” So this is a big joke to the big wigs in South Carolina. Money is shoved into their pockets, and the middle to low income are the ones placing it there. This is a 1980 Society in SC. And Nikki is an 80’s baby, along with her staff.