SC DEW: Increase in initial unemployment insurance claims last week
(Courtesy: SC DEW/Facebook)
SOUTH CAROLINA (WOLO) – The South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce reported an increase in initial unemployment insurance claims for last week.
According to the department, during the week of March 14 – 20, there were 3,066 initial insurance claims for unemployment that were filed.
That’s an increase of 314 initial claims filed from the previous week of March 7 – 13, where 2,752 claims were filed.
On their intrastate map showing initial unemployment insurance claims by counties, Horry County had the highest number of claims in the state with 367.
According to the department, since March 15, 2020, 865,179 total initial unemployment insurance claims have been filed in the Palmetto State.
The department has paid out a total of more than $5.6 billion since March 15 of last year in a combination of the following:
- Regular state Unemployment Insurance benefits
- Pandemic Unemployment Assistance
- Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program
- Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program
- Extended Benefits
- Lost Wages Assistance program
The U.S. Department of Labor says the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits went down last week to 684,000.
Officials say that’s a decrease of 97,000 from the week prior.
According to the department, insured unemployment was 3,870,000 for the week ending on March 13, which is a decrease of 264,000 from the week ending on March 6.
