President expects S.C. job growth

For several weeks, Democrats who want George Bush’s job have crisscrossed South Carolina, laying blame for the economy’s sorry state squarely at his feet.

On Thursday in Charleston, President Bush kicked it back at them and said there is reason to be hopeful.

“You’ve got a great work force in the state of South Carolina,” Bush said from the Port of Charleston. “Many foreign companies and companies from other states move here because South Carolina workers are dependable, good people.”

Still, Bush could not ignore the facts: The South Carolina economy, and especially its job market, is suffering:

• While unemployment in December dropped to 6.1 percent statewide, 2003’s overall rate was 6.4 percent.

• State employers have cut more than 41,000 jobs since December 2002, including 10,300 in Richland and Lexington counties.

• The S.C. Employment Security Commission said December’s drop in unemployment was not from an increase in jobs, but from “a sharp drop in the number of individuals looking for work.”

Bush acknowledged the challenges.

“Even though the unemployment rate is down, it’s still too high,” he said. “Many factory workers in textile and apparel have faced layoffs. But there are new jobs being created.”

The official purpose of Bush’s visit to Charleston was to address port security and the war on terrorism. While he did speak to those needs, nearly half of his speech dealt with the economy.

The president’s visit comes two days after more than 280,000 people voted in the Democratic presidential primary here. And according to exit polls, for 47 percent of those voters the economy was the most important issue in the election.

Remona Jenkins of Columbia knows the economy is not good. She was laid off from Lexington First Steps seven months ago and has yet to find another job in her profession.

But she has found a job, which begins today, doing office work to help pay the bills.

“It’s just something to carry me over until I get to something in the professional field,” said Jenkins, who is trained as a social worker and parenting adviser.

“It’s been tiresome, I’ll have to say,” Jenkins said.

There are reasons for both Jenkins and Bush to be optimistic, USC economist Donald Schunk said.

“The (national) economy is growing very quickly,” Schunk said. “Even though we’ve lost a lot of the textile and apparel jobs in this state, manufacturing is still quite large.”

The Democratic candidates routinely blasted Bush’s trade policies as devastating to the S.C. manufacturing base. Not requiring foreign governments to honor trade agreements — and the agreements themselves — has ruined the U.S. job market, they said.

U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who won the primary here Tuesday, was chief among those turning a baleful eye toward the economic prosperity of the late 1990s.

“The people of South Carolina sent a loud and clear message on Tuesday that we need a president in the White House who understands the concerns of the people of South Carolina,” said Jenni Engebretsen, Edwards’ spokeswoman. “Families across South Carolina are struggling, and the need for job creation is still very real.”

That focus — from Edwards and the other candidates — brought Bush to South Carolina.

“It probably made sense for the president to come here and sort of cast the state’s economy in a bit of a different light to combat the sense that he is somehow failing in preventing global competition,” Schunk said.

“It’s correct to say there’s more to it than just global competition, and it’s correct to say things are looking better, moving forward.”

Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com