COLUMBIA, S.C. — A record number of people in South Carolina have filed for unemployment benefits due to the coronavirus.
Even with increased staffing, the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce (SCDEW) is trying to keep up.
WLTX is updating a story we first told you last week about a woman who filed for unemployment in April, but couldn't get paid.
She was laid off on April 18th from her job at Goodwill, but through early May still was not receiving unemployment benefits due to an application issue.
After talking with WLTX last week, Pickett said she received a call from someone with SCDEW to fix the problem.
“I got a phone call the next day from a representative that was a nice lady, took her time fixing the issues that I had, and she did tell me I would receive a payment by that night,” Pickett said Thursday.
Pickett said she received three weeks of benefits the following Monday and was able to pay down due bills.
Re-certifying was easy this week, Pickett said. Now, she joins thousands of others trying to find new work.
“I haven't got, you know, interviews or anything yet, but I have gotten apps to fill out. All you have to do is put in your zip code, and they have a lot of stuff in your area,” Pickett said.
In the latest numbers available for the first week of May, 32,513 people applied for unemployment benefits in S.C., adding up to nearly a half million claims since the pandemic began.
The state has paid out $1.09 billion in state and federal funds since the pandemic began, according to SCDEW.
For the moment, Edgefield Senator Shane Massey, Republican, is confident the unemployment trust fund has enough cash.
“We're probably one of the best states in the country as far as having a solvent trust fund. And so, we're still in pretty good shape, but when you're paying out over $60 million a week, that's going to run out. That's where we've been, but we're projected-- we can hold for a few more months. But what we've got to do is to get people back to work,” Massey said.
The Senator said he helped a woman deal with a SCDEW issue last week and it's the most common problem constituents have had on phone calls the last two months.
“So you know the Department of Employment and Workforce went from getting 2-3,000 claims per week to all the sudden they got 60, 70, 80,000. And, now, fortunately they've started to come down. But, they were overwhelmed. It wasn't they were doing a bad job at all, they were just overwhelmed,” Massey said.
In the meantime, he's asking applicants to be patient and contact your elected representatives if you're continuing to have issues.
The Department of Employment and Workforce said their call center will continue to operate from 8am to 6pm during the week for the time being. They will also take calls this Saturday from 8am to noon.