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 May 16 – 22, there were 2,061 initial insurance claims for unemployment that were filed.
That’s a decrease of 484 initial claims filed from the previous week of May 9 – 15, where 2,545 claims were filed.
On their intrastate map showing initial unemployment insurance claims by counties, Greenville had the highest number of claims in the state with 222.
According to the department, since March 15, 2020, 896,806 total initial unemployment insurance claims have been filed in the Palmetto State.
The department has paid out a total of more than $6.2 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
Governor Henry McMaster has said that he wants to end federal programs that give extra cash to unemployed workers amid the pandemic by June 30th.
After June 30th, unemployed workers will lose an extra weekly $300 that was scheduled to run through early September.
The U.S. Department of Labor says the number of Americans seeking unemployment aid dropped again last week to 406,000, which is a new pandemic low.
Officials say this provides more evidence that the job market is strengthening as the virus wanes and economy further reopens.
According to Thursday’s report from the Labor Department, it showed that applications declined 38,000 from 444,000 a week earlier.
Officials say the number of weekly applications for jobless aid — a rough measure of the pace of layoffs — has fallen by more than half since January.
