After two record-setting years, the number of Washington workers receiving unemployment benefits - and the amount they received - shrank in 2011.
An estimated 440,000 people received benefits in 2011, a 12 percent drop from the all-time record of 503,000 in 2010. In 2009, 470,231 individuals collected jobless benefits.
Benefit payouts will total about $3.2 billion this year, compared to $4.6 billion in 2010 and $4 billion in 2009, according to a news release from the Washington State Employment Security Department. More than 54 percent of the 2011 payouts were covered by federal funds, with 46 percent coming from the state's benefits fund.
Overall, the average length of time Washington workers collected unemployment benefits declined from 42.2 weeks in 2010 to about 36.2 weeks near the end of 2011.
"Some of the decline is due to an improved economy, and some of it is due to unemployed workers simply running out of benefits," said Employment Security Commissioner Paul Trause.
By the end of December, about 70,000 workers will have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits, the most ever during a period when extended benefits were in effect.
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