ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia declined last week, welcome news after an increase reported the week before.
Jobless Georgians filed 32,381 initial unemployment claims last week, down 6,001 compared to the previous week, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Claims had gone the other way the week before, increasing by 4,759 during the first week of April.
Since the coronavirus pandemic broke out in a serious way in Georgia in March of last year, the state has issued more than $20.9 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits.
The labor department has processed nearly 4.7 million first-time jobless claims during that time, more than during the nine years prior to the pandemic combined.
The job sector accounting for the most initial unemployment claims in Georgia last week by far was accommodation and food services with 9,184 claims. The manufacturing job sector was next with 3,366 claims, followed by administrative and support services with 3,058.
More than 230,000 job openings are listed on the website EmployGeorgia. The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume and assisting with other reemployment needs.
ATLANTA – Georgia Rep. Bert Reeves is leaving the General Assembly to join the administrative staff at Georgia Tech, the university announced Thursday.
Reeves, R-Marietta, will serve as vice president for institute relations at his alma mater starting May 1. He will report directly to Tech President Angel Cabrera and serve as a member of the president’s cabinet.
“Bert’s unmatched passion for Georgia Tech and his firsthand experience as a leader in state government make him a perfect match for this role,” Cabrera said. “I very much look forward to working with him in moving Georgia Tech forward and finding ways to increase our impact in our community, our state and our nation.”
Reeves, a Cobb County native, was elected to the state House of Representatives in 2014 in a district that includes parts of Marietta and Kennesaw. He is one of Gov. Brian Kemp’s House floor leaders and serves as vice chairman of the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee.
In his new role, Reeves will be heading Georgia Tech’s government relations and economic development efforts.
“I am truly thrilled to have this opportunity,” Reeves posted on Facebook. “This is a perfect place for me to be, and I couldn’t be happier!”
Reeves said he is particularly proud of the work he did in the legislature on child welfare, adoption and foster care reform. This year, the General Assembly passed a bill he sponsored increasing the annual tax credit for new foster parents from $2,000 to $6,000 for the first five years after adoption.
During his student days at Georgia Tech, Reeves served as the school mascot “Buzz” from 1997 to 2000. He also has served as a trustee for the Georgia Tech Alumni Association.
Reeves’ last day in the General Assembly will be April 30. He also is closing down his law practice.
The Stone Mountain Confederate carving was dedicated in 1970.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp has appointed the first African-American to lead the Stone Mountain Memorial Association.
The Rev. Abraham Mosley of Athens will chair a state board that has come under growing pressure from civil rights groups to reduce the presence of Confederate imagery at a park that houses the world’s largest Confederate monument.
“I appointed Reverend Mosley to the Stone Mountain Memorial Association in 2019, where he has been an active, passionate board member,” Kemp said Wednesday. “With this expanded role, I am confident Reverend Mosley will continue to rely on his experience in bringing people together.”
Stone Mountain has long been dominated by a giant carving of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
Carved by the same sculptor who created the Mount Rushmore carving of U.S. presidents, the Stone Mountain memorial was dedicated in 1970 after fits and starts that delayed completion of the project by decades.
Well before that, Stone Mountain hosted the rebirth of a then-dormant Ku Klux Klan at a ceremony in 1915.
The adjacent park features Confederate flags and street names, all of which came under fire during last summer’s wave of protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a Black man, at the hands of a white police officer. Former Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter earlier this week.
There are limits to what the Stone Mountain Memorial Association can do to alter Confederate themes at the park. Kemp signed legislation two years ago that prohibits the desecration or removal of historic monuments from public property.
But the board could take up some proposals for changes at a meeting set for Monday.
Mosley, a native of Hancock County, has served as pastor of Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church in Athens for nearly 47 years.
He is not the first African-American to serve on the Stone Mountain association’s board. DeKalb County CEO Mike Thurmond was named to the board in 2017 and served for one year.
Georgia Power Co. will need to retire Plant Scherer and other coal-burning plants to achieve parent Southern Co.’s long-term goal of net-zero carbon emissions, according to a new study. (File photo)
ATLANTA – The rate at which Atlanta-based Southern Co. and other utilities in the Southeast reduce carbon emissions will flatten during the coming decade, preventing them from reaching long-term zero-carbon goals.
That’s the conclusion of a new study released by the Southern Allliance for Clean Energy (SACE).
While Southern Co. is on track to meet its interim goal of reducing carbon emissions 50% from 2007 levels by 2030, it is not close to being on pace to achieving a longer-term goal of net-zero carbon by 2050, the study reported.
Southern and other utilities were able to make significant strides reducing reliance on coal for electrical generation during the last decade mostly by retiring coal-burning plants and replacing them with natural gas.
Keeping up that rate of progress going forward will require retiring remaining coal plants at a steady pace and replacing gas with clean energy sources like wind, solar, battery storage and energy efficiency, according to the SACE report. But that’s not expected to happen, said Heather Pohnan, SACE’s energy policy manager.
“While decarbonization by mid-century could be possible if utilities reduce emissions at the rate observed over the past decade, that is not what current utility plans show, she said. “Instead, plans show that decarbonization will slow now that the lowest-hanging fruit has been picked.”
Based on the average annual reduction in carbon emissions of 3.8% Southern Co. realized during the last decade, the utility would reach its goal of net-zero carbon by 2056, just a few years later than originally anticipated.
But with carbon emissions expected to decline by only 1.8% annually on average during the current decade, the net-zero carbon goal set for 2050 would not be attained until 2086, according to the SACE study.
That conflicts with a Biden administration proposal that the nation’s electric sector reach 80% clean energy by 2030 and 100% by 2035.
“This is an important policy initiative that will require Southeast utilities to move beyond talk and into more serious actions,” SACE Executive Director Stephen Smith said.
“We anticipate regional utilities will need to increase investments in clean energy resources and get their resource plans on track to achieve the deep decarbonization required to meet this policy goal and limit the impacts from dangerous climate disruption.”
The study of Southeastern utility systems analyzed power generation and emissions from Southern Co., Duke Energy, NextEra and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Georgia Power Co. is a subsidiary of Southern Co.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp defended Atlanta-based The Home Depot Inc. Tuesday after a group of Black Georgia faith leaders called for a nationwide boycott of the company over its position on the state’s controversial election law.
“They did not ask to be in this political fight,” Kemp told reporters during a news conference. “It’s unfair to them, their families and their livelihoods to be targeted.”
Home Depot released a statement after Kemp signed Senate Bill 202 late last month that “all elections should be fair, accessible and secure.”
But the bill’s opponents criticized the statement as not strong enough, particularly when other Atlanta-based companies including Delta Air Lines Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. have forcefully condemned the legislation.
“A boycott is not something we wanted to do, but now it is something that we must do,” Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, who oversees Georgia’s African Methodist Episcopal churches, said Tuesday.
“Blacks and people of color, like others, are also [Home Depot] customers and they benefit from our dollars. … We believe they should oppose any effort to suppress our votes.”
While faith leaders were on the front lines Tuesday in calling for a boycott, Kemp said the effort is being led by Democrats intent on pressuring businesses to get behind congressional passage of sweeping voting rights legislation.
“This is not about Georgia’s election law,” he said. “This is about a movement at the national level to nationalize elections and have an unconstitutional takeover of state elections.”
The bill, which cleared the Republican-controlled General Assembly last month along party lines, replaces the signature-match verification process for mail-in ballots with an ID requirement. It also restricts the location of drop boxes and prohibits non-poll workers from handing out food and drinks within 150 feet of voters standing in line.
But it also expands weekend early voting hours in most Georgia counties and authorizes the use of drop boxes in state law for the first time.
By comparison, Kemp said voting laws in Democratic states including New York, New Jersey and President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware are more restrictive than Georgia’s new law.
That message has been lost in the rush to boycott Georgia-based companies and in Major League Baseball’s recent decision to pull the All-Star Game out of Georgia, the governor said.
“We have to stand up and tell people the truth about Senate Bill 202,” Kemp said. “It makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat in Georgia.”
Home Depot has 90 facilities, 15 distribution centers and accounts for 30,000 jobs in Georgia, Kemp said.
