Aiken County’s unemployment numbers are beginning to go down. But, in the past week, the office has been swamped with people filing unemployment extensions. WJBF News Channel 6’s Joy Howe has the story.

The White House says President Barack Obama on Friday morning will sign a bill that expands a popular homebuyers tax credit and extends unemployment benefits.

Congress is sending President Barack Obama legislation to expand a popular homebuyers tax credit and extend unemployment benefits.

According to a press release from Governor Mark Sanford’s office, the Governor signed, on Thursday, into law Senate bill 374, which extends benefits to the unemployed under the stimulus act. The bill passed with unanimous, bipartisan support and was made necessary by an oversight at the South Carolina Employment Security Commission (ESC).

Thousands of South Carolinians who are out of work should have their unemployment benefits extended soon, after action Tuesday by state lawmakers. Lawmakers are back in Columbia for what they hope will be a two-day session, to change state law to qualify for federal money to extend unemployment benefits. About 7,000 people had their benefits run out, last week, because the state had not made the change. State Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter sponsored a bill back in April that would have done it…but it didn’t pass. WJBF News Channel 6’s SC Capitol reporter, Robert Kittle, has more.

State lawmakers are back in Columbia, on Tuesday, to fix an oversight that is keeping the state from extending unemployment benefits. Lawmakers needed to change a state law, to make the state eligible for extra stimulus money from Washington, to extend those benefits. One state lawmaker also plans to introduce an impeachment resolution against Governor Mark Sanford. That’s expected to be sent to a committee,with no further action Tuesday.

New unemployment numbers have been released for the CSRA. The rate was unchanged at 10.2 percent from August to September.

Unemployment rates rose last month in 23 states and fell in 19 as the economy struggled to create jobs in the early stages of recovery. The Labor Department says Nevada, Rhode Island and Florida in September posted their highest jobless rates on records dating to 1976.

Governor Mark Sanford says it will take comprehensive change to improve the state’s unemployment rate. The Governor hosted an unemployment roundtable with state lawmakers Tuesday morning.

Thousands of South Carolina’s unemployed will miss out on additional benefits after state officials failed to take the steps necessary to secure them. Unemployed residents could have received an additional seven weeks of emergency benefits, from federal stimulus money, if lawmakers had passed a law to temporarily change the index used to count the number of people out of work. WJBF News Channel 6’s SC Capitol reporter, Robert Kittle, and Joseph Kasko, have more.

Senate Democrats have reached a deal to extend unemployment insurance benefits to workers in every state who are in danger of seeing their benefits run dry in the coming weeks.

The Georgia Department of Labor says first-time claims for state unemployment insurance benefits jumped by more than 17 percent in September from a year ago, but fell from the August figure.

Officials say a manufacturer of disposable baby diapers is moving into a former South Carolina textile plant, creating 260 jobs in a rural county suffering from high unemployment.

The Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) reported Thursday that the preliminary unadjusted unemployment rate in the metro Augusta area declined to 9.5 percent in August, down six-tenths of one percentage point from a revised 10.1 percent in July. The reduction in the rate is primarily due to work force shrinkage.

The Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) reported Thursday that the preliminary unadjusted unemployment rate in the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA) declined to 10.3 percent in August, down seven-tenths of a percentage point from a revised 11.0 percent in July. The reduction in the rate is primarily due to work force shrinkage.