State braces for a flood of unemployment claims as eligibility expands

Washington state officials are bracing for a “tsunami” of new claims for unemployment benefits from workers who were laid off or furloughed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The expanded and enhanced unemployment benefits provided by the federal stimulus package go into effect on Sunday.

Self-employed workers, independent contractors, and those who haven’t worked 680 hours in the previous year are eligible for unemployment benefits under the federal CARES Act, which stands for Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security.

“We know there are hundreds of thousands, if not more, who will now be eligible for unemployment assistance and we are looking forward to this expansion,” said Suzi LeVine, commissioner of the Employment Security Department, at a Thursday press conference..

In addition, workers receiving unemployment will get an extra $600 per week on top of their typical benefits. Those payments will be retroactive to when workers became eligible.

LeVine offered four tips for applicants:

• Sign up for “action alerts” on the department’s website, esd.wa.gov. Those alerts will provide instructions and information to better prepare people for how to apply, LeVine said.
• Use Employment Security’s elibility checker on the website to determine if you’re eligible for current unemployment benefits, or for the new expanded unemployment assistance.
• Consult the application checklist on the agency’s website. “Now for anybody who has tried to put together a bookshelf without instructions, you know what ultimately happens,” LeVine said.
• Sign up on the website for a SecureAccess Washington account, which is needed to use online services.

The number of people handling Employment Security’s customer service will increase from 500 to more than 1,000 next week, LeVine said.

Self-employed workers and independent contractors will have to upload wage data so it can be reviewed. During that review, the state will provide them with the minimum weekly benefit, which is $235 — plus the $600 from the CARES Act — for a total of $835.

The state then will verify the wage documentation and retroactively pay successful applicants for any difference.

She cautioned applicants that it will be a “very bare-bones website experience and it’s going to be a bit clunky.”

“It’s going to be a two-step process. So you’re going to go through and fill out the unemployment insurance form and at the end of that it’s going to state that ‘you’re ineligible.’ And then that will unlock another link to go and apply for the unemployment assistance.

“That’s not the optimal experience and I recognize that. But we wanted to get money in your pockets faster and that was a trade-off that we were willing to make in order to do that,” LeVine added.

This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 6:51 PM.