Progress made in state jobless payments logjam, but not soon enough for thousands
Eleven weeks.
That’s how long Carolyn Harrold has been waiting for her unemployment payments, still listed as pending, she told The News Tribune.
The former software engineer was laid off, along with the rest of her Seattle office, and said she “and one other employee from my team have yet to receive our unemployment. The others have all gotten theirs.”
“I file every week,” she said Thursday.
Harrold is among 37,371 initial filers with adjudication issues still seeking payments going back to March 8, with length of delays anywhere from one week to one filer’s case that dates back 17 weeks.
That’s down from more than 81,000 waiting in the backlog in mid-June.
Employment Security Commissioner Suzi LeVine told reporters Thursday the department was starting to see “serious momentum in clearing identity issues and resolving claims for those who have been waiting longest.”
LeVine said the department’s goal is to resolve all accounts caught in the logjam by the end of July if not sooner. That goal first came into focus in late June.
The adjudication logjam was the result of both a surge in claims from the COVID-19 pandemic and massive imposter fraud that targeted Washington and other states, leading to stricter vetting of identifications.
Helping in that momentum is that initial claims filed statewide last week 28,393, were down 11 percent from the previous week, though total claims overall, 736,151 were up 5.7 percent from the week prior.
Initial claims are still up 416 percent over the same time last year.
Initial regular claims in Pierce County filed last week decreased to 3,509, down 11 percent from the week before.
LeVine noted the majority of applicants are able to get through without complications and are paid within a week of their first claim.
Despite its touted momentum, the department is struggling with timely resolution of claims that need adjudication, with its Operation 100 Percent tracker showing it was taking on average seven and a half weeks to resolve claims with issues as of July 6.
Harrold remains underwhelmed by the status updates.
“Each time that they post a new date, I try to make a plan for how I can stretch my savings and use my credit cards to make it until then. But after 11 weeks of waiting, I am out of money and out of options,” she said. “I’ve sent them several messages. I got a response to one after several weeks, and it was a stock letter saying I would just need to wait longer. No details as to when I would hear anything else.“
She said calls to the department either yield a busy signal or recording “that eventually hangs up on me.”
She’s since moved back to Texas.
“I couldn’t afford Seattle rent with no job and no government assistance,” she said.
This story was originally published July 10, 2020 at 1:52 PM.
