COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Almost 79,000 unemployed South Carolinians will stop receiving federally funded weekly jobless benefits by year's end, state unemployment officials said Wednesday, because the state's jobless rate is improving and a new federal law is phasing out emergency benefits.

Also on Wednesday, the full Senate unanimously approved a bill disqualifying fired workers from receiving unemployment benefits.

South Carolina workers who lost their jobs have qualified for up to 78 weeks of payments: a maximum of 20 weeks through the state program, then 42 weeks of federally paid emergency benefits that Congress initially approved in 2008, plus 16 more weeks of federally funded extended benefits because of the state's chronically high jobless rate.