Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part series on Sen. John Matthew’s view of South Carolina as a state with two personalities: the rich and educated and the poor and ignorant. This first part deals with how wealth can be charted along South Carolina’s interstate lines.

State Sen. John Matthews, D-Bowman, says that when he was born in the 40s, his mother was teaching school for $378 a year.

White teachers at the time were being paid $788 a year, and books were marked “For Colored Only.”

Even though race still matters to the senator, he no longer sees it as the number one problem in South Carolina.

Number one is poverty.

Matthews is interested especially in what causes that poverty along the I-95 corridor, which runs through Jasper, Florence, Sumter, Clarendon, Orangeburg, Dorchester, Colleton and Jasper counties, with Orangeburg County at Santee’s mile marker 98 marking a halfway point.

For this reason, he was the primary sponsor of a 2005 concurrent resolution to create an I-95 Corridor study committee. He brought feedback from that committee to the Rotary Club of Orangeburg recently.

South Carolina has two populations – those in the 14 counties with 65 percent of the state’s wealth, and those in the other 32 counties with only 35 percent of the wealth. If you look at the two areas, the wealthier part runs roughly along the I-85 corridor, I-20 and the coastal counties.

The I-85 corridor accounts for about 100 miles but has five times the infrastructure of the I-95 corridor. I-85 moves from the economic centers of Atlanta- Greenville- Spartanburg- Charlotte, and traffic stops along the way.

Comparatively few stops are made along the I-95 Corridor, which finds itself in the poorer part of the state, moving from mile marker 1 at Jasper County to mile marker 200 in Dillon County. Since 2003, the poverty rate in the area has increased from 57.2 percent to 61.1 percent, he said.

South Carolina’s average per capita income is 82 percent of the national per capita income, he said, but the more affluent I-85 Corridor competes with the national average. Along I-95, however, the per capita income of blacks is 30 percent less than the average South Carolinian white at every educational level – comparing professional to professional, technology degree to technology degree, even drop-out to drop-out, Matthews said.

“Along I-95, only 9 percent of African-Americans have bachelor degrees,” he said. “Income is tied to skills. The African-American family is carrying a 40 percent greater burden because they have 40 percent more children, and on top of that, they make 30 percent less money.”

For those who study history, the I-95 corridor is the old short-staple cotton belt, Matthews explained. According to the most recent data, considering those in the 18-45 age group, only 15 percent of jobs in the area are for unskilled workers, which make up 52 percent of the population. Sixty-two percent of the available jobs require a two-year degree, and 22 percent a four-year degree, he said.

To compete with the national adult population, Matthews says that, along the corridor, the 9 percent of the African-Americans who have four-year college degrees need to increase to 30 percent, adding “We have a huge under-performing population that has to be dealt with.”

Another factor which causes the above statistic is what Matthews calls the severe brain drain along the I-95 corridor. The best high school students graduate and never return, he said, whereas graduates from the I-85 corridor return home at a substantially higher rate and invest in their communities.

Those legislators whose constituents live along I-95 have several ideas for creating wealth in their districts, according to Matthews:

1. For the beginning of the corridor, they want either a public or private port for Jasper County, which they hope will benefit Colleton and Allendale counties too. Jasper County has natural deep water, he said, and can draw from the Savannah water traffic.

2. A collaboration between Orangeburg and Dorchester counties to improve the economy of the middle portion of the I-95 corridor.

Several steps have been taken or are proposed toward this end, including a legislative re-classification of Orangeburg County back to “under-developed” status to allow larger tax incentives for industry. There are also plans for improving infrastructure, including seven new industrial parks, the Clyburn Connector, the Inland Port and the development of the Lake Marion Regional Water Authority.

“We have a large core population here that is unskilled, but the inland port will create the kind of jobs we can use,” he said, “and the Clyburn Bridge will add to the economy by tying these areas together.”

In early 2000, Matthews introduced legislation to create an economic development fund in both Orangeburg and Dorchester counties for constructing or improving infrastructure from Highway 301 and I-26 to Holly Hill, Harleyville, St. George, and back up through Bowman to Orangeburg’s current industrial park. Within that triangle, seven class A industrial parks will be created that will be within 20 miles of any of those communities, the senator said.

Orangeburg’s numbers actually moved from a classification of “under-developed” to “moderately developed” in 2005, but Matthews said the legislative delegation changed its designation back to “under-developed” in 2006 to obtain more tax incentives in marketing the county.

3. Action has begun on the third step: an upgrade of the schools. The county has followed the advice of a strategic plan developed in the 90s by consolidating eight school districts into three, bringing uniformity to teacher salaries and per pupil expenditures throughout the district and improving infrastructure.

None of Orangeburg’s schools have the minimum population of 2,600 that most studies say is needed to offer an essential curriculum at an affordable cost, but black people and the poor have been shown to perform better in smaller school systems. The county has tried to preserve the local community flavor while consolidating the administrative part of the school districts.

Part two of “The Wrong Side of the Tracks” will appear tomorrow. It looks at how South Carolina’s approach to the economy and education varies from its sister states: North Carolina and Georgia.

Nancy Wooten may be reached at 803-533-5540 or by email at nwooten@timesanddemocrat.com. Discuss this and other stories on-line at the www.TheTandD.com.

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