Local government agencies are seeing more requests for unemployment and food benefits in the midst of the nation’s economic downturn, officials say.

Corey Pitts, area director of the Orangeburg Workforce Center, said Orangeburg County’s unemployment rate stood at 12.7 percent as of August. As a result, there are more requests for unemployment insurance benefits.

“There’s been a significant increase. ... However, we do have some of the folks that are going back to work,” Pitts said.

“We have a lot of layoffs and then people are just, for some reason, not keeping their jobs. They’re not making really thoughtful moves on their jobs, so it’s causing them to be fired,” he said.

His office also administers the Workforce Investment Act program, which assists individuals in acquiring job skills and training.

“That could be occupational training, job training, getting their GED and getting their CDL license or anything that’s in demand,” Pitts said. Once eligibility requirements are met, individuals have their tuition and other associated educational costs paid for, he said.

“They’re assigned a case manager who develops an individual service plan to determine how they’re going to accomplish their goal. That may be attending workshops to upgrade their interviewing or job-seeking skills,” Pitts said. “The goal is to make sure that individual is self-sufficient and able to take care of themselves.”

Harold Williams, director of the Orangeburg County Department of Social Services, said his office has also seen increased requests for food stamps and assistance in paying rent and utility bills. Food stamp benefits allow individuals to purchase food at stores with a plastic Electronic Benefits Transfer card.

“We’ve seen an increase in all areas. We have also gotten more cases of child abuse. People tend to get frustrated during these times, and sometimes kids get caught up in the process,” Williams said.

He said the DSS waiting room is crowded with people just about every day.

“We have more and more people trying to apply for family assistance. There are ladies laid off from jobs who have no income. There are also more and more people there for light bills and rent,” he said, adding that the department’s food service case workers have upwards of 600 individuals seeking food stamp benefits.

“It’s a tremendous hardship on the caseworkers,” Williams said.

He said money collected from individuals caught trying to defraud the food stamp benefit program is used to help individuals with other needs such as food, light bills, rent and medication payments.

The Family Independence Program was instituted in the mid-1990s as part of nationwide welfare reform. The program gives welfare recipients more than just a check; other kinds of help are also provided, including child care, transportation, career counseling and help with interview skills.

The program helps to put welfare recipients to work in a career, not just a job, Williams said, adding that it has helped to remove more than 80 percent of people from the welfare rolls.

“We’re just continuing to put our job seekers back into the workforce,” Pitts said. “It may not necessarily be in what they did previously, but we’re training them up in other areas of interest so that they can become self-sufficient wage earners. Nobody needs to be unemployed at this time.”

Williams said other DSS offices are feeling the same crunch of service requests.

“It’s like that statewide with people lining up,” he said.

T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached by e-mail at dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5534. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

 

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