With 17 percent of its 11,000 residents out of work, and 35 percent living in poverty, South Carolina's Allendale County has the state's highest unemployment rate. Layoffs over the past few months have reduced the already scarce number of jobs in the area, which has struggled with "poverty and despair" for decades. "There's nothing here. Everything's closed down," said Maude Fields, 55. "I've lived here all my life. It's home. But we are all pushed up against the wall here." Neighboring counties Orangeburg, Bamburg and Barnwell rank among the top ten counties in the state with the highest unemployment rates after posting double-digit jobless rates last month. According to Corey Pitts, Orangeburg's area director of the state Employment Security Commission, more than 800 people have been laid off over the past few months, and hundreds show up daily at the commission's offices, desperate for work. "It's just continually increasing," he said. Even those who find work aren't that fortunate. Latoya Conner joined a group of workers, mostly women, who face a four-hour roundtrip bus ride to Hilton Head Island, where they worked washing dishes in high-end restaurants, cleaned hotel rooms, or cut lawns for $8 an hour. The 4 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. day leaves many with no time at home for their families before they have to start again the next day. Latoya Conner eventually quit after her mother died and has been unable to find work since then. Ruby Lee Huggins, 53, a widow and mother of four, was laid off from her job of 21 years two months ago. "I don't never stop looking," she said. "As long as I got my health, I'm going to work."
