Who pays unemployment in South Carolina, and how do you start a claim?
File an initial claim with DEW, the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce, in its MyBenefits portal. If DEW finds you eligible, it pays $42 to $350 a week, for up to 20 weeks, to workers who lost a job through no fault of their own.
Call DEW's claims line: 1-866-831-1724
DEW decides every South Carolina claim, and it can only decide one you have filed. There is no paper application: you file in MyBenefits on a computer or a smartphone, and the resource room at any SC Works Center has computers if you have neither.
The first steps run in this order:
- Gather your Social Security number and your recent work history, as the South Carolina filing guide lists them.
- Create your MyBenefits account, verify your identity, and file your initial claim. The claim counts from the Sunday of the week you file.
- Register for work in SC Works Online Services, the state's online job bank, or another way DEW approves, as DEW's regulations require of every new claim.
- Watch the mail for your monetary determination, the notice that shows your weekly amount, how DEW worked it out, and how many weeks you can be paid. Check it for missing wages.
- From the week after you file, certify each week in MyBenefits and make at least 2 job searches a week in SC Works Online Services. Your first eligible week is the unpaid waiting week.
Most South Carolina searches ask how long the money lasts. The 20-week cap is the same for everyone, but your base-period wages and the reason your job ended decide how much of it you get, and how long South Carolina benefits last walks through both. Whether you qualify at all turns on your wages and why you left, which South Carolina's eligibility rules set out.
South Carolina unemployment guides
- How to fileFiling in MyBenefits, what to gather, phone hours, and help without a computer
- Who qualifiesThe wage tests, base period, quit and firing rules, and school staff
- How much it paysThe weekly amount, DEW's formula, what lowers a payment, and part-time pay
- How long it lastsThe weeks a DEW claim pays, the benefit year, and what comes after
- Weekly claims and work searchThe weekly certification, work searches, payment, and reporting earnings
- Denials, appeals, and overpaymentsAppeal deadlines, hearings, overpayment waivers, repayment, and fraud
- TaxesFederal and state tax, DEW withholding, and your Form 1099-G
- Offices and phone numbersDEW's phone lines, their hours, and SC Works Centers by city
- DisabilitySSDI, SSI, workers' comp, Vocational Rehabilitation, and unemployment
- JobsSC Works Online Services, SC Works Centers, and training while you claim
- Questions and answersHow long DEW pays, health coverage, SNAP, 2-1-1, severance deals, and scams