South Carolina pays off $1B unemployment debt to federal government, By Seanna Adcox (AP), June 11, 2015, Post and Courier: “South Carolina’s unemployment agency has paid off its nearly $1 billion debt to the federal government, five months ahead of schedule. Gov. Nikki Haley announced that the Department of Employment and Workforce made a final payment Thursday of $120 million. Early payments over the past four years have collectively saved businesses nearly $13 million in interest, while also reducing their insurance taxes…”
Tag: South Carolina
Food Stamp Trafficking
A new push to halt food stamp trafficking, By Jake Grovum, November 10, 2014, Stateline: “Backed by a $300,000 federal grant, South Carolina officials are trying a new approach to what they call a particularly insidious problem: food stamp trafficking. The pilot program gained approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture this fall, and if successful, could provide a model for other states looking to limit trafficking of food stamps, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Officials use the word ‘trafficking’ to describe the sale of food stamp benefits for cash, or the use of the benefits to turn a profit instead of to purchase food. They say stories about trafficking undermine public confidence in a program that, despite huge growth during the Great Recession, has seen other measures of error rates fall to historic lows…”
States and Medicaid Expansion
- Medicaid expansion could add thousands of jobs in state, By Liv Osby, December 7, 2012, Greenville News: “Expanding the Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act could mean some 44,000 new jobs and millions in additional revenues for the state by 2020, according to a new report from the South Carolina Hospital Association. That includes a total of 10,172 jobs in the Upstate, 3,152 of them in Greenville County and 831 in Pickens County, the report obtained by GreenvilleOnline.com shows. About a third of the jobs will be outside the health care sector because of the multiplier effect. And that additional employment would translate into about $1.5 billion in labor income and $3.3 billion in economic activity by 2020, according to the report prepared by the University of South Carolina’s Moore School of Business. Medicaid now covers about one in four South Carolinians, most of them children…”
- Study: Expanding Medicaid could save Wyoming millions, By Joshua Wolfson, December 7, 2012, Casper Star-Tribune: “Expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act could save Wyoming more than $47 million over six years, according to a Wyoming Health Department report released today. Medicaid expansion would allow the state to spend fewer general fund dollars on other health programs, more than offsetting the cost of adding thousands of new people to the program, the study shows. The Health Department expects Medicaid expansion will cost the state $151 million between 2014 and 2020. But over that time, it projects $198.5 million in offsetting savings if Wyoming chooses to fully participate in the expansion…”