SC jobless claims decrease for second week in a row as COVID-19 pandemic continues

South Carolina jobless claims decreased for the second week in a row, the Department of Employment and Workforce reported on Thursday.

The numbers of new unemployment claims ticked down by 7,957 the week of April 19-25, and decreased by 22,552 in the past two weeks. Though the slowdown could reflect fewer South Carolinians losing their jobs as the pandemic inches into May, a historic number of people — at least 407,000 — have already applied for unemployment benefits since the outbreak began in the state, according to DEW.

Some upstate counties are still home to thousands of new unemployment claims: 8,809 in Greenville County and 6,329 in Spartanburg County. Richland County residents submitted 4,137 new jobless claims, while Lexington County residents filed 2,872 claims last week. In the Lowcountry, 5,496 Charleston County residents and 5,745 Horry County residents filed for unemployment between April 19 and 25, according to DEW.

From mid-March to the week ending April 25, DEW paid out $585 million in state unemployment benefits, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA).

The FPUC program, funded by the federal CARES Act, gives $600 extra per week to South Carolinians who previously qualified for unemployment in the state, on top of the state benefits they already receive. The PUA program expands unemployment benefits to cover workers who otherwise wouldn’t qualify, or who were deeply affected financially by the COVID-19 outbreak. South Carolina still has not began accepting claims for Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, a third federal program that extends unemployment benefits to 39 weeks for those who have already exhausted the 20 weeks S.C. allows.

The state labor agency is handling an unprecedented amount claims, a situation that’s expected to drain the state’s unemployment trust fund and require South Carolina to seek federal relief later this year, officials said.

And as state health officials warn of increasing COVID-19 cases in coming weeks, business leaders are working to reopen the state’s economy. S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster, who pledged to have business “humming” by the summer, allowed certain nonessential businesses to reopen two weeks after they were ordered to close. He also announced the convening of a task force to help plan South Carolina’s economic recovery.

South Carolina has not met a key benchmark set by federal health officials — a consistent 14-day downward trend in new cases — although a recent model suggested the state might have passed its peak of COVID-19 deaths. State Epidemiologist Linda Bell has said DHEC expects hundreds of new cases each week, into mid-May.

Public health leaders still don’t know the full scope of the virus in South Carolina, in large part due to limited testing capabilities in the state’s hospitals, said Tod Augsburger, CEO of Lexington Medical Center. It is also unknown how many asymptomatic patients there are, what treatment is effective, or whether widespread immunity to the virus is possible.

This story was originally published April 30, 2020 at 9:11 AM with the headline "SC jobless claims decrease for second week in a row as COVID-19 pandemic continues."