Thousands of Washingtonians still waiting for first unemployment check

More than 1.2 million people in Washington have applied for unemployment. Due to some major snags in the system, thousands are still waiting to see their first check.

Burien resident Beth O'Donnell is one of them. In March, she lost her job as a marketing manager for a hospitality company.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Ms. O’Donnell’s situation has an extra wrinkle because she moved here from Oregon last year, but her long wait is far from unique. She told me about her ordeal trying to access unemployment benefits.

O'Donnell: I applied the first time on March 17, and I was denied. But ESD (Employment Security Department) advised me to try to submit another claim, because I'm a new resident from Oregon. So, I filed a joint claim, but unfortunately, that claim was also denied. Once the pandemic insurance became available, I filed a third claim. That claim is still pending, the PUA (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance) claim. I haven't received any benefits whatsoever.

I understand you've been trying to get in touch with the Employment Security Department to try to resolve this. Tell us about what's been happening for you.

I've called ESD thousands of times. In fact, I have an auto-redial program on my phone. I set the limit at 750 times a day. I'm not exaggerating when I say thousands of times.

Did you ever get through and talk with an actual human being?

Yeah. It took several months, but after calling thousands of times, I was able to get through four times. The first time, unfortunately, they hung up on me when they said they were going to transfer me. The second and third time, I was able to reach a person, but essentially, they were just an answering service. They were not claims agents. They weren't able to help me, or really even answer any of my questions.

Finally, in June, I was able to reach someone who was able to look into my account. That's when I learned that the reason my benefits were on hold was because I had this joint claim, and that the Oregon account was still open. That wasn't listed anywhere on the website under my account. There was no way for me to know that. Had I known that, of course, I would have cleared it up.

Since that time, I've done what I needed to do in order to fix the Oregon portion. However, that was nearly a month ago. I’m still just waiting for Washington to reopen the phone lines so that I can call them and tell them that that the Oregon claim is closed, please release my benefits.

And you are still in limbo, waiting to hear back. How has the situation impacted your life?

It's been pretty devastating. As you can imagine, I'm 17, nearly 18 weeks without any income. Sadly, on a personal note, my family has had two deaths this year, in 2020. We're all struggling.

I've depleted my savings. I've deferred every payment I can. At this point, I'm having to borrow money from the same family members that I'm also grieving with. They're also financially impacted. So, it's just been a pretty terrible situation all around.

The Employment Security Department Commissioner Susie Levine said to people like you, ‘We know you're waiting, and we are working incredibly hard to get you what you need.’ What is your response to that?

It's just nearly impossible to believe that. They've lost my trust. It's difficult to believe that help is coming anytime soon. I'm not sure they're doing everything they can. They're not able to, and they need to bring in outside support to help them.

Susie Levine is promising to have this backlog cleared out by the end of the month. When you look to the end of the month, a couple of weeks away now, how do you see those next two weeks going for you?

Well, let's see. August rent will be due. I'm not sure where that will come from. I’ll have to get on the phone again, and potentially borrow more money. In addition, August is the time that all those deferred payments are going to be coming due. You only get to defer for so many months. In August, time's up. I think that would be the case for many people.

There will be a lot of hard decisions. Potentially, leaving my place, losing my car, moving in with family. There’s a lot of hard decisions that are going to come due pretty quickly.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.