More than 5,000 initial unemployment claims were registered in South Carolina last week, while the coronavirus pandemic continued to retain parts of the economy and contribute to new layoffs.
People who signed up for unemployment benefits between January 17 and 23 will join tens of thousands of other South Carolinians who were laid off last year and continue to apply for unemployment benefits at the SC Department of Employment and Workforce.
According to the most recent data available from the US Department of Labor, more than 198,000 individuals have continued to certify past unemployment claims as of January 9.
Not all of these individuals were considered eligible for unemployment benefits. Last week, about 129,750 people were actually receiving money from the state or through one of several federal unemployment programs that were created by Congress last year.
The total number of people applying for benefits, however, is something that economists monitor to assess the overall health of the state’s workforce.
A portion of the nearly 5,000 new unemployment insurance claims received last week can probably be attributed to an annual increase in claims that the state handles each year after people are released from their jobs after the holidays. But that does not explain all the new claims.
DEW is still dealing with a monumental number of unemployed people, and the agency is spending hundreds of millions of dollars every week.
Part of that money comes from the state’s unemployment insurance trust, made up of taxes paid by companies in South Carolina. But an even bigger part of the funding is coming from the federal government now.
More than 75 percent of people who continued to certify a claim through January 9 were applying for benefits offered by the federal government.
More than 77,000 of these people signed up through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which offers benefits to contractors, freelancers and so-called temporary workers. And another 72,000 signed up through the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which covers people who have already spent their 20 weeks of eligibility for state unemployment.
Congress extended both programs for 11 weeks as part of a new federal stimulus package approved in late December. As part of that bill, federal lawmakers also provided an extra $ 300 a week for each eligible unemployment candidate in the country.
This means that anyone considered eligible for aid in South Carolina could receive up to $ 326 per week in normal benefits and an additional $ 300 per week from the federal government. This program will last until mid-March.
Reach Andrew Brown at 843-708-1830 or follow him on Twitter @andy_ed_brown.