2021 Session Review: Unemployment Insurance

Due to the COVID pandemic, in the last 14 months, ESD has paid out over $17.5 billion in benefits to more than 1.1 million Washington workers. States\’ UI systems and administration were not designed or prepared to handle a situation like COVID with millions of individuals filing UI claims all at once. This led to individuals having trouble with their UI claims submissions and not being able to speak with someone at ESD which then led to approval and payment delays for many Washingtonians.

Bill Numbers:

HB 1486 (2021-22) HB 1493 (2021-22) SB 5061 (2021-22) SB 5190 (2021-22) SB 5193 (2021-22) SB 5425 (2021-22) SB 5478 (2021-22)

Keywords:

COVID-19/corona Employment Security Department (ESD) Unemployment compensation and insurance Unemployment Insurance (UI) Trust Fund Unemployment tax

DOWNLOAD PDF