Why Are the Phone Lines To Sign Up for State Unemployment Benefits Still So Busy?
In this week’s Stranger, I look into the question that many people have been asking in Slog comments and in e-mails: How can our state’s unemployment hotline still be understaffed six months into this economic crisis? It’s been more than six months since the number of new unemployment-benefits applications began soaring in Washington State. In September of last year, when the current economic implosion began, there were about 41,000 new claims. In October, the monthly new-claims number was up to about 55,000. The November total: 66,000. The December total: more than 90,000. We’re now in February, with the layoff spree continuing in Washington and around the country, and yet the unemployment- benefits call center run by the state’s Employment Security Department remains overwhelmed. “It’s like Russian roulette trying to talk to a human being over there,” wrote Schuyler Bagwell, who was laid off from Seattle’s Community Court in October, in an e-mail to The Stranger. So what’s going on?
