SC DEW: Decrease in initial unemployment insurance claims last week

(Courtesy: SC DEW/Facebook)

SOUTH CAROLINA (WOLO) – The South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce reported a decrease in initial unemployment insurance claims for last week.

According to the department, during the week of September 27 to October 3, there were 5,102 people that filed their initial claims for unemployment.

That’s a decrease of 30 initial claims filed from the previous week of September 20 – 26, where 5,132 people filed.

On their intrastate map showing initial unemployment insurance claims by counties, Richland County had the highest number of claims in the state with 567, with Greenville County right behind it with 497 claims.

SC DEW says since March 15, 754,810 initial claims have been filed.

The department has paid more than $4.3 billion in a combination of the following:

• Regular state Unemployment Insurance benefits
• Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (For the self-employed and others)
• Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program ($600 per week)
• Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program (Extension of benefits for 13 weeks)
• Extended Benefits (Additional 16 weeks of benefits after PEUC)

The U.S. Department of Labor reported today that 840,000 Americans sought unemployment insurance last week.

The department says this doesn’t include the most up-to-date data from California, which has temporarily stopped accepting new jobless claims in order to work through a backlog and implement fraud prevention technology.

They also said the total number of people claiming unemployment benefits through all programs was 25.5 million as of the week ending Sept. 19.