South Carolina Updates

Aug 22, 2025 8:00:00 AM

Hands-Free and Distracted Driving Act

Effective September 1, 2025, South Carolina enacts the Hands-Free and Distracted Driving Act to:

Define the term mobile electronic device;
Remove old definitions from the state's distracted driving law; and
Prohibit the use of mobile electronic devices while operating a motor vehicle under most circumstances.

Previous Updates

Prohibits Subminimum Wages

By August 1, 2024, the South Carolina Task Force on Eliminating the Subminimum Wage is responsible for phasing out the use of the subminimum wage. South Carolina's subminimum wage law, allowed employers to pay people with disabilities less than the state's minimum wage.

South Carolina Lactation Support Act

The South Carolina Lactation Support Act (SCLSA) requires all employers to:

Provide an employee with reasonable unpaid break time or permit an employee to use paid break or meal time each day to express breast milk, unless doing so would create an undue hardship on the employer's operations; and
Make reasonable efforts to provide a room or other location in close proximity to the work area, other than a toilet stall, where an employee can express milk in privacy.

The law requires the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission to post on its website information about SCLSA rights and responsibilities by the law's effective date, which is July 25. Employers have 30 days after the Commission posts the information before they must comply.