The legislature has recently passed 4 bills that are heading to the Governors desk for signature that address some of the issues the Employment Security Department (ESD) has struggled with in the last 12 months.

ESD has struggled with significant issues with slow processing times, adjudication backlogs, fraudulent claims and over payment problems that have plagued the troubled agency since before the pandemic began.

The bills are, in no specific order,

Senate Bill 1493 (SB 1493) gives ESD the authority to adjust the job search requirements to qualify for unemployment benefits.

Senate Bill 5193 (SB 5193) will create new training programs for adjudicators who review unemployment claims for eligibility and improve language simplicity to claimants to help them through the unemployment claims process. This should reduce wait times for claimants who suffered some extremely long wait times to receive their claims in 2020.

House Bill 1455 (HB 1455) would require ESD to stop using social security numbers to identify individuals if they are not required to do so by federal law. Earlier this year, ESD suffered a breach of 1.3 million client records during an audit and part of that breach included Social Security Numbers.

Senate Bill 5425 (SB 5425) would extend unemployment benefits further and while this does help those who are still unemployed due to the government lockdown, it will place further fiscal pressure on the unemployment trust fund balance.

The Washington Policy Center published reform recommendations and SB 5193 and HB1455 address several of the issues identified, but there are still several issues that need to be corrected.

More can be done, particularly in pre-registration for unemployment claims and private insurance accounts to help create a stable unemployment system.

ESD needs to continue making significant reforms now to avoid the same situations again in the future and better serve our state’s workers.