A new Economic Policy Institute report analyzes the state of the economy for South Carolina workers over the last several years. Despite South Carolina experiencing exceptional job growth since the COVID-19 pandemic, workers’ wages remained low and saw weaker growth than in the rest of the South and the country.

Almost one in five (18.5%) workers in South Carolina were paid less than $15 per hour in 2023, compared with 15% across the South and 12% nationally. The median worker in South Carolina saw their hourly wages rise by just 0.8% between 2019 and 2023 to $22.46 per hour. Workers across the South saw a larger 1.8% increase, while workers nationally saw an increase more than five times greater than in South Carolina at 3.8%. 

Further, workers across South Carolina are less likely to have paid sick days and 78% do not have access to paid family and medical leave. South Carolina has the lowest union coverage rate of any other state in the country—likely a major contributor to poor job quality in the state. Many South Carolinians, especially children and Black and brown residents, are experiencing high rates of poverty and overall economic insecurity.

These outcomes for workers and families reflect, at least in part, the long shadow of worker exploitation that started with the state’s horrific embrace of slavery and what continued to closely resemble slavery after it was outlawed. Today, South Carolina is one of just five states that has no state minimum wage, and it is one of about two dozen states with so-called “right-to-work” laws that undermine workers’ ability to form unions. These and other laws in South Carolina are designed to disempower workers, ensuring that wealthy corporations can continue to exploit their labor.

Instead of continuing anti-worker policies, lawmakers should adopt policies that allow South Carolinians to share in the prosperity their labor creates, according to the report. This includes embracing the job quality levers built into the federal infrastructure laws; implementing a minimum wage that is truly a living wage; adopting paid leave policies; repealing preemption laws; and providing affordable, reliable public transportation to allow all working-age South Carolinians to fully participate in the labor market.

“A long history of policies designed to maintain racial hierarchies and stack the deck against workers means low wages and poor working conditions for many South Carolinians. It is long past time for South Carolina lawmakers to begin adopting pro-worker policies to ensure that all jobs in the state are good jobs,” said Chandra Childers, senior policy and economic analyst with EPI’s Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN). 

“This report puts cold, hard numbers to the realities that working people in South Carolina live every day,” said South Carolina AFL-CIO president Boris Gibson. “Legacies of racism and slavery continue to echo in our present day through Jim Crow-era ‘right-to-work’ laws, weak enforcement of workplace safety standards, and low wages that are impossible to raise a family on. But tides are turning in our state and around the South. Workers of all backgrounds are uniting together and organizing to demand the fair pay and dignity they are owed.”