Months into the pandemic, tens of thousands are still waiting on unemployment checks
Gov. Jay Inslee said this week that 37,000 Washingtonians are still waiting to get unemployment checks since the pandemic shut down the economy.
That’s a drop from the 81,000 who were waiting as of June 15, but Inslee said, “Obviously more needs to be done.”
“People are terribly frustrated by this,” Inslee said during a recent press conference. “Thousands have not been able to have their claims processed fully on a timely basis.”
The state’s Employment Security Department saw claims rise 10-fold as the novel coronavirus sent the economy into lockdown, prompting the division to hire hundreds of extra employees to process the claims.
As the pandemic hit the U.S., the ESD became the target of widespread fraud that cost the state as much as $650 million, roughly half of which has been recovered.
https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2020/07/09/unemployment-checks-still-waiting.html
