Few South Carolinians awoke Tuesday morning to the news of this state's loss of the highly coveted AAA credit rating and went into a panic. The news seemingly has little application to the lives of ordinary people. Such credit ratings influence what state or local governments pay when they issue bonds to pay for capital improvements.

The downgrade by Standard & Poor's Rating Services -- from AAA to AA-plus -- is troubling for what it says about this state's overall economic condition. And this is the point that should resonate with the average guy on the street: South Carolina was downgraded primarily because of this state's high unemployment rate.

That's something the average person can understand. There is higher unemployment in South Carolina than there was five years ago. And worse, the manufacturing sector in this state -- the one that provides generally high wages for its workers and nurtures the economic base that allows many small businesses to thrive -- has taken quite a beating. And worse still, the manufacturing sector shows no signs of coming back because many of those jobs, particularly in textiles, have disappeared because of global competition or because technological improvements have allowed plants to eliminate workers.

"South Carolina's economic growth has been sluggish following the recession, especially in comparison with other 'AAA'-rated Southeastern states," Standard & Poor's credit analyst Eden Perry said in a statement on the rating firm's Web site. "In addition, the state has not yet returned to its prerecessionary levels of employment."

This is what South Carolina's governor and state lawmakers should be focusing on: attracting more jobs, especially well-paying jobs, to our state.

Gov. Mark Sanford used Monday's dreadful news to take shots at state legislators, and in a statement he called the downgraded credit rating "highly avoidable" and implied lawmakers were more interested in growing state government than the state's economy. Such overstatements do nothing to improve the governor's ability to work with the Legislature. Plus the credit rating report indirectly criticized one of the governor's initiatives, the proposed $1 billion income tax reduction plan.

The Standard & Poor's report actually was somewhat complimentary of the Legislature, noting the state has instituted formal financial planning (and Sanford deserves credit in this area, too), has a conservative stance toward debt (its $2.5 billion in general obligation bonds makes it 29th in the nation in per capita bond debt) and didn't adopt the governor's proposed income tax reduction plan of $1 billion (although lawmakers agreed to a $129 million cut for small businesses). Left unsaid was lawmakers also didn't approve the governor's plan for generous school vouchers that could have cost millions of dollars.