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Thursday, April 1, 2004
As jobless rate falls, benefits also shrink
Unemployed residents will have a little less support next week, when the maximum time they can claim unemployment benefits shrinks, even as another well of additional benefits runs dry.
As part of an effort to improve the business climate, and land The Boeing Co.'s 7E7 assembly plant, last year state lawmakers cut the number of weeks an unemployed resident can claim unemployment from 30 to 26 in certain circumstances.
Under the new formula, when the state jobless rate falls below 6.8 percent during a three-month period, the number of weeks of benefits drops to 26, according to the Employment Security Department. The state is now below that level; the February unemployment rate stood at 6.1 percent.
So, people who lose their jobs Sunday and beyond will receive no more than 26 weeks of unemployment checks.
"Each month there are still 7,000 to 8,000 individuals who exhaust their regular unemployment benefits and have no other benefits available," Employment Security Commissioner Sylvia Mundy said in a statement yesterday.
Although the recession in Washington ended last summer, the recovery has not created enough new jobs for the unemployed.
Meanwhile, another program, Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation, is running out of steam.
Late last year, Congress declined to extend the program, which offered up to 13 weeks of extra benefits. As the program wound down this year, it cut off benefits for 21,500 displaced Washington workers, Washington Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell said yesterday.
The program will completely shut down early this month, halting benefits for 24,633 more residents in the next three months, the senators said, citing a report by Democratic staffers on the House Committee on Government Reform.
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