I waited and submitted my weekly claim on 3/22 and waited. I submitted my weekly claim on 3/29 and still nothing. Everything is “pending” or “redetermined” or “under adjudication” — I have seen no money.
I applied for unemployment on 3/15, the day we got word that we were going to have to close. I originally got denied because I hadn’t worked fulltime at my standby request job, but that’s because I had 3 other part-time jobs.
So I called, was on hold for 3.5 hours, was put on a call back list, finally got a call 4 hours later. I got everything “cleared up” when I talked to a real person on the phone and I got approved for standby.
Then I waited and submitted my weekly claim on 3/22 and waited. I submitted my weekly claim on 3/29 and still nothing. Everything is “pending” or “redetermined” or “under adjudication” — I have seen no money. I finally got through to hold with ESD this morning and have been on hold for an hour already, I expect it to be several hours.
My main concerns are staying healthy and getting money in my pocket. I have severe asthma so this whole thing has me pretty nervous about getting sick. But I’m also worried about how long it has taken unemployment to do anything. I know a lot of people are in the same boat too. I don’t know how they expect us to wait 4-6 weeks with zero income in a city with one of the highest costs of living in the country.
This whole situation has opened up a lot of conversations about healthcare coverage, minimum wage and who is deemed “essential emergency workers”, public health and safety measures, paid sick/safe time, and other big topics. It is clear that our state and country have a lot of work to do. This pandemic is shining the light and cracks in the system are showing, and it doesn’t look good. I’m only afraid that after all this is over people will forget about the huge corporate bailouts and the people who are left to die because they are sick without insurance and try to go back to “the way it was”. The way it was is no way to be, we need to do better.
— Anonymous, Seattle