Bill introduced to give employers incentives to hire unemployed

Majority Leader Harvey Peeler introduced a bill on the Senate Floor Tuesday to give employers up to $2,400 in tax credits if they hire unemployed workers. He said, “the way this would happen would be $100 a month for up to 24 months.
“If an employee was receiving unemployment benefits for four weeks, it makes them eligible to be hired by this employer. This employer must work this employee for at least four weeks to be eligible to receive the tax credit.”
Peeler says the bill was inspired by statistics that alarmed him. “Last April, 2008,” said Peeler, “we had 3,853 South Carolina citizens receiving unemployment benefits. This April, 2009, we have 125,968. That’s over 90,000 more than a year ago.”
Peeler says that they must, as a government, do something about this problem now.