COLUMBIA, S.C. — As national unemployment numbers were released Thursday, South Carolina's Department of Employment and Workforce (DEW) announced that 85,018 people in the state filed for coronavirus-related unemployment during the week of March 29 to April 4, 2020.
DEW reports that the agency has processed 180,928 claims in the past three weeks and has paid $18,498,410 to South Carolinians in unemployment insurance from March 15 to April 4. The money total does not include the funding from the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance nor the additional $600 per person from the CARES Act.
The number of claims three weeks prior was 5,862.
In response to the amount of claims being filed, DEW says that it has increased call center staff by 400% in the past two weeks.
One DEW representative says that half of their call center staff is being used to answer questions that could be answered on the DEW YouTube channel through walk-through videos and other FAQs at dew.sc.gov, which is taking time away from actually confirming claims and helping folks with legitimate filing issues.
DEW also says that over the weekend, the ICON Hub (national database) that validates social security numbers nationwide added server support to better accommodate the volume. In South Carolina, DEW is seeing more claimants able to process and complete a claim without an SSN validation issue.