Washington’s unemployed are running out of benefits
By Seattle Business Magazine September 24, 2010
The National Bureau of Economic Research announced Monday, to widespread confusion and skepticism, that the recession ended in June 2009.
The announcement does seem to clash with the news on national unemployment this month. According to the Seattle Times, the jobless rate increased in 27 states last month, after increasing in only 14 states the month before. Nationally, the unemployment rate moved up to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent last month.
Washington State’s unemployment rate has remained flat at 8.9 percent since July. However, the number of people running out of unemployment benefits has been on the rise.
On June 20 2008, the federal government passed the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) legislation, which provided benefits to individuals who have run out of their regular state unemployment insurance. These additional benefits mean unemployed individuals can keep receiving unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks. A report from the Washington State Employment Security Department last week stated that over the last month, the number of people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits has increased for the first time since March, to a total of more than 3,000.
The current increase in exhaustions reflects the number of people who went on unemployment about two years ago in the summer of 2008, when unemployment was rising rapidly.
“In addition it no doubt reflects the difficulty unemployed persons are having in finding work,” chief economist Dave Wallace says via email. “Prior to August, the monthly number of exhaustees had been consistently in the 2000 range.”
Because extended unemployment benefits like EUC are rare, Wallace adds, it’s difficult to predict how many more people will run out of unemployment benefits in the months to come. Although unemployment remains steady in our state, job creation is slow, with only 900 private sector jobs created in August. The job market still needs to expand greatly before the number of exhaustees decreases.