SC DEW: Lowest number of initial unemployment insurance claims last week since the pandemic began
(Courtesy: SC DEW/Facebook)
SOUTH CAROLINA (WOLO) – The South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce says its reported the lowest number of initial unemployment insurance claims last week, since the pandemic began last year.
According to the department, during the week of May 23 – 29, there were 1,972 initial insurance claims for unemployment that were filed.
That’s a decrease of 89 initial claims filed from the previous week of May 16 – 22, where 2,061 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 221.
According to the department, since March 15, 2020, 898,778 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 30.
After June 30, 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 last week for a fifth straight week to a new pandemic low.
Officials say jobless claims dropped 385,000, which is down 20,000 from the week before as more jobs are becoming available since the pandemic hit.
According to the department, in the week that ended May 15, a total of 15.4 million people were receiving some form of jobless aid. That was down from 15.8 million the previous week.
