No claimant shall be eligible to receive benefits or waiting period credit following the completion of a temporary work assignment unless the claimant shows that he informed the temporary employment agency that provided the assignment of the assignment’s completion before the end of the next working day. The claimant must also have contacted the temporary agency for a new assignment within seven calendar days prior to the effective date of the claim to be eligible for benefits.

[Effective March 30, 2010]

 

Section 41-35-120 amended the rules governing benefits for individuals fired for misconduct. An insured worker is ineligible for benefits for: “discharge for illegal drug use, and is ineligible for benefits beginning with the effective date of the request and continuing until he has secured employment and shows to the satisfaction of the department that he has performed services in employment as defined by Chapters 27 through 41 of this title and earned wages for those services equal to at least eight times the weekly benefit amount of his claim if the:

1. Company has communicated a policy prohibiting the illegal use of drugs, the violation of which may result in termination;
2. Insured worker fails or refuses to provide a specimen pursuant to a request from the employer, or otherwise fails or refuses to cooperate by providing an adulterated specimen; or
3. Iinsured worker provides a blood, hair, or urine specimen during a drug test administered on behalf of the employer, which tests positive for illegal drugs or legal drugs used unlawfully, provided:
   1. The sample was collected and labeled by a licensed health care professional or another individual authorized to collect and label test samples by federal or state law, including law enforcement personnel; and
   2. The test was performed by a laboratory certified by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the College of American Pathologists, or the State Law Enforcement Division; and
   3. An initial positive test was confirmed on the specimen using the gas chromatography/mass spectrometry method, or an equivalent or a more accurate scientifically accepted method approved by the National Institute on Drug Abuse;
4. For purposes of this item, “unlawfully” means without a prescription.

That section also provides examples of gross misconduct that also result in ineligibility for benefits beginning with the effective date of the request and continuing until he has secured employment and shows to the satisfaction of the department that he has performed services in employment as defined by Chapters 27 through 41 of this title and earned wages for those services equal to at least eight times the weekly benefit amount of his claim for:

1. Willful or reckless employee damage to employer property that results in damage of more than fifty dollars;
2. Employee consumption of alcohol or being under the influence of alcohol on employer property in violation of a written company policy restricting or prohibiting consumption of alcohol;
3. Employee theft of items valued at more than fifty dollars;
4. Failure to comply with applicable state or federal drug and alcohol testing and use regulations including, but not limited to, 49 C.F.R. part 40 and part 382 of the federal motor carrier safety regulations, while on the job or on duty, and regulations applicable for employees performing transportation and other safety sensitive job functions as defined by the federal government;
5. Employee committing assault or batter of another employee or a customer;
6. Employee committing abuse of patient or child in his professional care;
7. Employee insubordination, which is defined as willful failure to comply with lawful, reasonable order of a supervisor directly related to the employee’s employment as described in an applicable written job description; or
8. Employee willful neglect of duty directly related to the employee’s employment as described in an applicable written job description.

[Effective March 30, 2010]

 

Previously South Carolina Code 41-27-310 defined an “insured worker” as, “an individual who has been paid wages in his base period for insured work equal to or exceeding one and one-half times the total of his wages paid in the quarter of such base period in which his wages for insured work were highest; provided, however, that no individual shall qualify as an insured worker unless he has been paid at least nine hundred dollars in his base period for insured work and five hundred forty dollars in that quarter of his base period in which such wages were highest” (emphasis added). Legislative reforms passed in 2010 changed these minimum earnings requirements to $4,455 in the base period and at least $1,092 in the highest quarter. These minimum earnings requirements to be monetarily eligible for unemployment benefits are in line with our neighboring state of North Carolina. This change also increased the minimum weekly benefit amount from $20 to $42 per week. The maximum weekly benefit amount for 2011 remained unchanged.

[Effective January 1, 2011]

 

Section 41-27-525 was added to allow for benefits to some part-time workers. If the majority of the weeks of work in an individual’s base period includes part-time work, the individual shall not be denied unemployment benefits under any provisions of this act relating to availability for work, active search for work, or failure to accept work, solely because the individual is seeking only part-time work. The phrase “seeking only part-time work”, as used in this subsection, means the individual claiming unemployment benefits is available for a number of hours per week that are comparable to the individual’s part-time work experience in the base period.

[Effective January 1, 2011]

 

Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 41-35-120, an individual is eligible for waiting week credit and for unemployment compensation if the department finds that the individual was separated from employment due to compelling family circumstances. Compelling family circumstances means:

1. That a claimant was separated from employment with the employer because of the illness or disability of the claimants, and based upon available information, the department finds that it was medically necessary for the claimant to stop working or change occupations;
2. The claimant was separated from work due to the illness or disability of an immediate family member; or
3. The claimant’s spouse was transferred or employed in another city or state, the family is required to move to the location of that job, the location is outside the commuting distance of the claimant’s previous employment, and the claimant separates from employment in order to move to the new location with his spouse.

An immediate family member is defined as a claimant’s spouse, parents, or minor children. An illness or disability means a verified illness or disability that necessitates the care of the disabled person for a period of time that exceeds the amount of time the employer will provide paid or unpaid leave. Disability includes, but is not limited to, mental and physical disabilities, permanent and temporary disabilities, and partial and total disabilities.

Additional rules and regulations governing the definition of verified will be promulgated by the department and will be available on our website.

[Effective January 1, 2011]

 

Section 41-24-150 was amended to allow for an alternate base period if the claimant fails to qualify monetarily under the traditional base period. Except as provided in subsection (B), “base period” means the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters immediately preceding the first day of an individual’s benefit year. The “alternate base period” means for benefit years effective after December 31, 2010, if an individual does not have sufficient wages in the base period defined in subsection (A) to qualify for benefits, his base period must be the four calendar quarters completed most recently before the individual’s benefit year if this period qualifies him for benefits, provided these quarters were not previously used to establish a prior valid benefit year.

If the wage information for an individual’s most recently completed calendar quarter is not available to the department from regular quarterly reports of systematically accessible wage information, the department promptly must contact the individual’s employer to establish such wage information. The director shall establish rules necessary to implement this subsection.

Wages that fall within the base period, if claims established under this section, must not be available for use in qualifying for a subsequent benefit year.

[Effective January 1, 2011]

 

In 2011, the taxable wage base will increase to the first $10,000 of a worker’s wages. In 2012 this will increase to $12,000 and to $14,000 in 2015. This is the first increase in the state’s taxable wages since 1983 and puts South Carolina closer to the national average of slightly over $15,000.

[Effective January 1, 2011]

 

Rate Class	Lower Benefit Ratio	Upper Benefit Ratio	Base Rate/Replenish	Interest + Contingency	Total Effective Rate
1	0.000000	0.000013	0.00	0.098	0.0980
2	0.000014	0.002175	0.71	0.102	0.8120
3	0.002176	0.003907	0.79	0.107	0.8970
4	0.003908	0.005084	0.88	0.112	0.9920
5	0.005085	0.005928	0.97	0.118	1.0880
6	0.005929	0.007516	1.08	0.125	1.2050
7	0.007517	0.008601	1.20	0.132	1.3320
8	0.008602	0.010330	1.33	0.140	1.4700
9	0.010331	0.012091	1.48	0.149	1.6290
10	0.012092	0.013907	1.65	0.159	1.8090
11	0.013908	0.016098	1.83	0.170	2.0000
12	0.016099	0.019060	2.03	0.182	2.2120
13	0.019061	0.022324	3.89	0.292	4.1820
14	0.022325	0.026485	4.33	0.318	4.6480
15	0.026486	0.032421	4.81	0.347	5.1570
16	0.032422	0.039447	5.34	0.379	5.7190
17	0.039448	0.049122	5.93	0.414	6.3440
18	0.049123	0.060059	6.59	0.453	7.0430
19	0.060060	0.084817	7.32	0.497	7.8170
20	0.084818	999.999999	8.14	0.546	8.6860

South Carolina has received conditional approval from the U.S. Secretary of Labor to receive the full 5.4 percent credit on business federal unemployment taxes (FUTA) for calendar year 2011. The conditional approval is granted, in part, on South Carolina not borrowing funds to cover benefit payments through January 31, 2012. The U. S. Secretary of Labor will officially certify South Carolina’s FUTA credit reduction status after January 31, 2012. More information on the credit reduction will be available on IRS form 940. Please continue to check our website for updates.

PLEASE NOTE: The taxable wage base for 2012 is $12,000.

Each employer is assigned to a tax class based on their own benefit ratio. The benefit ratio will include the combined experience of all predecessor account activity (acquisitions, mergers, joint, and related accounts) that occurred over the previous eight years. The benefit ratio will be calculated as the sum of benefit charges over the previous eight years divided by the sum of taxable wages over the same time period. Employers will be assessed an interest surcharge to cover the costs associated with borrowing from the federal government to make benefit payments.

Employers with the lowest benefit ratios will be assigned to tax class 1. Employers with the highest benefit ratios will be assigned to tax class 20. Complete information about how your individual benefit ratio was computed will be included in your annual rate.

Employers will continue to be charged a contingency assessment of 0.06%. These funds are used by the Employment and Training division for reemployment services; the assessment has been authorized by the South Carolina state legislature since 1986.

 

The tax reforms also changed the method the state uses to experience rate employers. Previously, South Carolina used the reserve ratio system, and beginning in 2011, the state will use a benefit ratio system. For rate computations for tax years 2011-2013, the state will use up to forty quarters of experience of the firm to compute their ratio. For tax year 2014, the experience will be changed to include 12 quarters of experience in the rate computation period.

When unemployment insurance benefits are paid to a worker, the value of those benefits is “charged” to the worker’s former employer or employers. Under both systems, benefit payments charged to a firm over a defined period of time become a key basis for an employer’s experience rating.

Under the reserve ratio system, states set up an account for each experience-rated employer. All taxes paid by an employer are credited to this account, and benefits to a firm’s former employees are debited from this account. Ordinarily this balance, or “reserve”, is carried forward from year to year. The balance of this account is positive if cumulative tax payments are larger than cumulative benefits charged and negative if cumulative tax payments are smaller than cumulative benefits charged. In each year, each employer’s experience ratio, the reserve ratio, is developed by dividing the firm’s reserve balance by a measure of the wages paid by the firm.

The benefit ratio system does not consider employers’ tax contributions—only benefits charged over a defined period. As with the reserve ratio system, benefit charges are divided by a measure of the firm’s taxable wages.

These experience ratings are then used to determine an employer’s tax rate. Employers with the highest benefit ratios typically pay higher tax rates while employers with the lowest benefit ratios pay the lowest tax rates.

Because the reserve ratio is based on the full history of an employer’s benefit charges and tax payments, it will change less abruptly because of an increase or decrease in benefit payment than the benefit ratio. Both are designed to partly recoup charged benefits and ensure some degree of equity among employers over multiple years.

[Effective January 1, 2011]

 

The new tax system being implemented January 2011 also eliminates fixed tax rate schedules, which tend to ignore the system’s revenue needs. The new rates will be set each year such that the entire schedule raises the income required to pay benefits, make loan repayments, and pay interest on those loans.

Employers will be ranked from lowest to highest benefit ratio and assigned a tax class 1 through 20, based on this benefit ratio. Approximately 5% of taxable wages will be assigned to each class. The employers with the lowest benefit ratios will be assigned to tax class 1 (which has the lowest tax rate) and employers with the highest benefit ratios will be assigned to tax class 20 (which has the highest tax rates).

Tax rates will also vary with the taxable wage base. A tax rate of 1% with a taxable wage base of $7,000 raises approximately the same amount of revenue as a 0.5% tax on a taxable wage base of $14,000. Thus, as the taxable wage base increases from 2011 to 2014, the assigned tax rates will fall, even if the system is raising the same amount of revenue.

[Effective January 1, 2011]

 

While the UI Trust Fund is in debt status, the new laws governing DEW provide for two surcharges: one for loan repayment/trust fund rebuilding and one for interest payments. The revenue needed for loan repayments is added directly to the revenue required to pay benefits to determine the amount of regular contributions each employer will owe. This results in a trust fund rebuilding surcharge that follows the same experience rating process as regular contributions. The interest surcharge is also designed to be experience rated, although it has a slightly different structure compared to the regular and trust fund rebuilding contributions. Once the trust fund loans from the federal government are repaid, the interest surcharge will go to zero although the trust fund rebuilding surcharge will remain in place until the trust fund can be brought up to the new solvency standard, an average high cost multiple of one.

[Effective January 1, 2011]

 

The Workforce Department Appellate Panel may on its own motion affirm, modify, or set aside a decision of an appeal tribunal on the basis of evidence previously submitted in the case; direct the taking of additional evidence; or permit a party to the decision to initiate further appeals before it. The appellate panel must permit further appeals by a party to a decision of an appeal tribunal and by the examiner whose decision has been overruled or modified by an appeal tribunal. The appellate panel may remove to itself or transfer to another appeal tribunal the proceedings on a claim pending before an appeal tribunal. Proceedings removed to the appellate panel must be heard by a quorum pursuant to the requirements of Sections 41-35-690 and 41-35-720. The appellate panel promptly must notify a party to a proceeding of its findings and decision.

Notwithstanding another provision of law, it shall be mandatory for a member of the Department of Employment and Workforce Appellate Panel to retire not later than the end of the fiscal year in which he reaches his seventy-second birthday.

[Effective March 30, 2010]

 

Within 30 days from the date of mailing the department's decision, a party to the proceeding whose benefit rights or whose employer account may be affected by the department's decision may initiate an action in the administrative law court against the department for the review of its decision, in which action every other party to the proceeding before the department must be made a defendant. In this action a petition, which need not be verified but which must state the grounds on which a review is sought, must be served on the executive director or on a person designated by the department within the time specified by this section. Service is considered complete service on all parties, but there must be left with the person served as many copies of the petition as there are defendants, and the department promptly shall mail one copy to each defendant. With its answer the department must certify and file with the court all documents and papers and a transcript of all testimony taken in the matter and its findings of fact and decision. The department also may certify to the court questions of law involved in a decision by the department. In a judicial proceeding under this chapter, the findings of the department regarding facts, if supported by evidence and in the absence of fraud, must be conclusive and the jurisdiction of the administrative law court must be confined to questions of law. These actions, and the questions so certified, must be heard in a summary manner and must be given precedence over other cases. An appeal may be taken from the decision of the administrative law court pursuant to the South Carolina Appellate Court Rules and Section 1-23-610. It is not necessary in a judicial proceeding under this article to enter exceptions to the rulings of the department, and no bond is required for entering the appeal. Upon the final determination of the judicial proceeding, the department must enter an order in accordance with the determination. A petition for judicial review must not act as a supersedes or stay unless the department orders a supersedes or stay.

[Effective March 30, 2010]

 

In making appointment and hiring decisions for positions pursuant to this act, the governing authority or individual tasked with making such appointment or hiring decision must consider race, gender, and other demographic factors to assure nondiscrimination, inclusion, and representation to the greatest extent possible of all segments of the population of this State; however, consideration of these factors in no way creates a cause of action or basis for an employee grievance for a person appointed or for a person who fails to be appointed.

[Effective March 30, 2010]

 

The Legislative Council shall contract for three independent management audits of the department’s finance and operations. This first audit must be completed by July 1, 2011, the second audit must be completed by July 1, 2013, and the third audit must be completed by July 1, 2018. The Legislative Audit Council may contract for follow-up audits or conduct follow-up audits as needed based upon the audit’s initial findings. The cost of these audits, including related administrative and management expenses of the Legislative Audit Council, are an operating expense of the department. The department shall pay directly to the Legislative Audit Council the costs of the audits.

[Effective March 30, 2010]

 

Section 41-35-615 was amended to allow employers ten calendar days to respond by mail to a request for information on the cause of a claimant’s separation or ten business days by email. If the 10th day falls on Saturday, Sunday or state holiday it falls to the next day.

[Effective March 16, 2011]

 

Section 41-27-590 was amended to require all criminal actions for violation of any provision of Chapters 27 through 41 of the title or of any rules or regulations issued pursuant thereto be prosecuted by the Attorney General of the State or at his request and under his direction by the solicitor of any circuit or any prosecuting attorney in any court of competent jurisdiction in the county in which the employer has a place of business or the violator resides. It also requires the department to refer all cases of significant claimant and/or employer fraud to the Attorney General to determine whether to prosecute the offender.

[Effective March 30, 2010]

 

A list of Frequently Asked Questions with detailed answers may be found here.