Unemployment Benefits
S.C. Code 41-35-110 and S.C. Code 41-35-120 — out of work through no fault of your own, half the weekly wage, and twenty weeks at most
An unemployed insured worker is eligible for a week's benefits after claiming that week, registering for work, being able and available to work and actively seeking it, serving a waiting period of one week, and having separated through no fault of their own from the most recent bona fide employer.
Half the weekly wage, twenty weeks at most. The weekly benefit is fifty percent of the worker's weekly average wage, not less than $42 and not more than a maximum the department publishes each year. The most a worker may receive in a benefit year is the lesser of twenty times the weekly amount or one-third of the base period wages.
- Leaving work voluntarily without good cause: no benefits until the worker earns eight times the weekly benefit amount in new covered employment.
- Discharge for misconduct, meaning wilful and wanton disregard of the employer's interests: no benefits for the next twenty weeks, and the total cut by twenty weeks' benefits.
- Discharge for cause short of misconduct: no benefits for five to nineteen weeks, as the department decides by the seriousness of the cause.
Those are three of the grounds for being ruled ineligible. No finding of misconduct may rest on a firing that came from an extreme hardship, emergency or sickness, and a firing for poor performance from inefficiency or inability disqualifies under neither.
Further grounds cover discharge for illegal drug use, refusing suitable work and labor disputes. A particular claim is a question for the Department of Employment and Workforce.
Sources for this section (4)
- S.C. Code 41-35-40 — Weekly benefit amount
- S.C. Code 41-35-50 — Maximum potential benefits for year
- S.C. Code 41-35-110 — Conditions of eligibility for benefits
- S.C. Code 41-35-120 — Disqualification for benefits
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of October 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed South Carolina attorney.