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 February 28 – March 6, there were 5,146 initial insurance claims for unemployment that were filed.
That’s an increase of 1,057 initial claims filed from the previous week of February 21 – 27, where 4,089 claims were filed.
On their intrastate map showing initial unemployment insurance claims by counties, Richland County had the highest number of claims in the state with 420.
According to the department, since March 15, 2020, 859,361 total initial unemployment insurance claims have been filed in the Palmetto State.
The department has paid out a total of more than $5.4 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
- Lost Wages Assistance program
The U.S. Department of Labor says the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits went down to 712,000 for last week.
Officials say that’s a decrease of 42,000 from the week prior.
According to the department, insured unemployment was 4,144,000 for the week ending on February 27, which is a decrease of 193,000.
