Additional $600 per week given to S.C. jobless

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Following initial delays, the statewide agency that oversees the unemployment insurance fund says South Carolinians who have lost employment since the COVID-19 pandemic began are now seeing increased benefits in their weekly checks.

In various communication this past week, the state Department of Employment and Workforce said it began issuing an additional $600 per week - earmarked from federal stimulus money - to eligible unemployment claimants on Sunday, April 12.

In recent weeks, most statewide unemployment agencies across the U.S. have been on the receiving end of heavy criticism from newly unemployed residents due to federal delays affecting the implementation of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act.

Also slowing the injection of the additional stimulus funds into people's unemployment checks in many states, including South Carolina, was a lack of agency operational capacity to handle the massive influx of online system users and phone calls in the crisis.

State department officials say upgrades in various forms were finally made in the last week.

On Thursday, agency Chief Administrative Officer Jamie Suber said call center staff will be expanded to about 400 representatives by Monday. A month ago, when the economic fallout associated with the coronavirus began, the agency had 46 dedicated contact center representatives.

In one more week, the agency is looking to have 500 staff members assisting unemployment claims filers with questions.

The agency continues to refer employers, claimants and also job seekers at this time to its COVID-19 hub on the internet, https://dew.sc.gov/covid-hub.

Before the $600 addition in benefits to all states, the most money someone could qualify for in South Carolina was $327 per week.

Seven more deaths were announced Friday afternoon, including a middle-aged Sumter County resident and an elderly patient from Lee County. According to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, both were otherwise healthy before contracting the virus.

The other five victims included three elderly people with underlying health conditions from Florence, Richland and Lexington counties and two elderly people without other health diagnoses from Berkeley and Horry counties.

DHEC also announced 163 new COVID-19 cases Friday.

Sumter County is now at 176 residents to have tested positive and six deaths. Clarendon County is at 106 confirmed cases and six deaths, and Lee County has had 40 confirmed cases and five deaths.

There have now been 4,086 South Carolinians to test positive for the virus, 116 of whom have died.