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Emergency unemployment benefits being reduced due to federal sequester

5/8/2013

13-021

Media contact: Sheryl Hutchision, communications director, 360-902-9289

OLYMPIA – The state’s Employment Security Department is preparing to reduce emergency unemployment compensation benefits by 21.08 percent due to the federal sequester law.

Emergency unemployment compensation (EUC) is a federally funded program that provides additional weeks of unemployment benefits to unemployed workers who run out of regular, state-funded benefits. In Washington, regular unemployment benefits last up to 26 weeks, then workers can receive up to 37 weeks of EUC, which is divided into a series of three tiers.

Beginning May 19, EUC recipients will see their weekly benefits reduced when they move from regular benefits onto EUC, or when they move from their current tier of EUC to the next tier.

Since EUC is a federal program, the sequester law requiring across-the-board reductions takes priority over the minimum weekly benefit established in state law. Therefore, people receiving the current minimum weekly benefit of $143 will be reduced to $112 when they move to the next EUC tier. The maximum weekly benefit is $604 for claims opened since July 2012.

About 40,000 people in Washington are now receiving EUC or nearing the end of their regular unemployment benefits. Employment Security is using direct mail, email and robocalls to inform these individuals about the impending change. Information also is posted on the department’s website. 

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Broadcast version

The Employment Security Department will soon reduce emergency unemployment compensation benefits by twenty-one-point-zero-eight percent due to the federal sequester law.

Emergency unemployment compensation – or E-U-C – is a federally funded program that provides up to thirty-seven additional weeks of unemployment benefits when workers run out of their state-funded benefits.

Beginning May nineteenth, weekly benefits will be reduced when individuals move onto EUC – or when they move from their current tier of EUC to the next tier.

Employment Security is sending letters, email and phone calls to about 41-thousand people who could be affected.

More information is available at esd.wa.gov.

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