How much does unemployment pay in South Carolina?

The $350 top figure is DEW's own, set in February 2025, and DEW can set a new one in any year. South Carolina adds nothing for a spouse or children, so your weekly amount depends only on your own wages.

How DEW works out your weekly amount

DEW figures one weekly benefit amount when your claim is set up, from wages your employers already reported. Only pay from employers covered by South Carolina's unemployment law counts.

1. DEW finds your base period and the quarter in it when you were paid the most, called the high quarter. The eligibility guide explains base periods and the wage test you must pass first.
2. It divides the high quarter's wages by 26. The statute says the same thing another way: half of your average weekly wage, which is the high quarter divided by 13.
3. It rounds the result down to a whole dollar.
4. It pays no less than $42 and no more than DEW's maximum.

In the example in DEW's Claimant Handbook, a worker's base-period quarters paid $7,400, $8,000, $6,800, and $7,800. The $8,000 high quarter divided by 26 is $307.69, which rounds down to a weekly benefit amount of $307. The same example shows how that amount sets the total a claim can pay, which is on the guide to how long benefits last.

The minimum, the maximum, and who sets them

The statute lets DEW set the maximum each year anywhere up to that ceiling, and DEW must publish it on its website. Your claim keeps the maximum that was in force on the day you filed, a rule that covers every claim filed since July 1, 2007, so a later change applies only to claims filed after it. DEW's Claimant Handbook gives $350 as the maximum, and the U.S. Department of Labor's July 2026 summary of state laws lists the same $42 and $350.

Checking or disputing your amount

DEW mails a monetary determination after you file. It lists the wages each covered employer reported for your base period, your weekly amount, and the most you can be paid, so go over it line by line.

• A job is missing. Call a DEW claims representative at 1-866-831-1724, or dispute the wages in MyBenefits, DEW's claimant portal. You may have to send a paystub or a W2 as proof, and missing wages may be added.
• You think DEW got the math wrong. Asking for a reconsideration is the only way to dispute how DEW calculated your weekly amount. You can apply, for good cause, no later than 10 days after the determination was mailed.
• The error surfaces later. DEW must redo a determination when it finds a computation error or newly discovered wages, but not more than 1 year after the original determination.

If DEW's answer still looks wrong, the appeals guide covers the next step.

What can lower a week's payment

• Pay from work. Anything you earn above one-fourth of your weekly amount comes off that week's payment, as the next section shows.
• A pension. DEW's handbook says a pension is deducted only if it is based on your own work and paid by a base-period or chargeable employer. It is deducted at the share your employer paid in, and a military pension at 100 percent. The statute adds that nothing is deducted if you paid for all of it yourself. The handbook warns that retirement income may affect your weekly amount, and DEW must hear from you once you receive, or apply for, retirement plan payments.
• Social Security. It does not lower your payment. The statute says Social Security benefits do not count as a pension.
• Severance or other separation pay. Report it on your weekly claim. DEW may contact you for details to decide whether it is deductible.
• Jury duty. You cannot be denied benefits for a week the law requires you to serve as a juror or appear as a witness, but the payment is reduced by any juror per diem, which you report as earnings.
• Vacation pay. You are not unemployed in a vacation week paid at your regular wages. The same goes for an unpaid vacation week set by a written contract or written company policy, up to 2 in a benefit year, when a job with that employer is waiting at the end of it. Each rule stops applying if your employer failed to file a notice DEW requires for the vacation, though employers with fewer than 50 workers do not have to file one for an unpaid vacation.
• Child support. DEW must withhold what you owe and send it to the child support enforcement agency.
• An overpayment. An unpaid balance is taken out of future benefits. DEW says you cannot set up a payment plan while you are collecting, and your benefits cannot be used to pay penalty fees.

Tax withholding comes out only if you choose it when you file. The taxes guide gives the rates and how to change your choice.

Working part time while you claim

You can still be paid for a week of work when you worked less than full time, 29 hours or less, because your employer had no more work for you, and your gross pay for the week was less than your weekly amount. DEW treats 30 hours or more as full time.

DEW lets you earn up to 25 percent of your weekly benefit amount with no deduction. Every dollar above that comes off your payment, and the result is rounded down to a whole dollar. If you earn more than your weekly amount in a week, you are not unemployed that week, and DEW pays nothing for it.

Here is the handbook's $307 weekly amount against a week of 10 hours of part-time work at $20 an hour:

Report your gross pay, before taxes and deductions, for the week you earned it, not the week you are paid. That includes tips, odd jobs, self-employment, bonuses, and commissions, from every employer. DEW's earnings worksheet helps you add up a week, and the weekly claims guide covers how to report it.