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 January 24 – 30, there were 4,665 initial insurance claims for unemployment that were filed.
That’s a decrease of 378 initial claims filed from the previous week of January 17 – 23, where 5,043 claims were filed.
On their intrastate map showing initial unemployment insurance claims by counties, Greenville County had the highest number of claims in the state with 412; Richland and Horry Counties both had 411.
According to the department, since March 15, 835,246 total initial claims have been filed in the Palmetto State.
The department has paid out a total of more than $5.1 billion since March 15 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
The U.S. Department of Labor reported the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to 779,000, the lowest in two months.
Officials say that number is a still-historically high total as weekly applications for jobless aid had never topped 700,000, even during the Great Recession.
According to the department, 17.8 million people were receiving unemployment benefits in the week that ended Jan. 16, which is down from 18.3 million from the previous week.
