One more important detail - when your staff applies, they need to indicate they're requesting standby status and provide the specific return-to-work date after each period off. So for your March 31 week, they would enter the date they're returning to work in April. For scattered weeks, this gets updated with each period of unemployment. Also, everyone should set up their ESD account and claims BEFORE the first day off work. The system can be glitchy, and you don't want authentication issues delaying benefits.

Also be prepared for SOME of your staff to have their claims go into adjudication for no apparent reason! ESD randomly flags some claims and then it can take WEEKS to resolve!!! Make sure everyone has some savings just in case because there's no predicting who might get stuck waiting!!

I just wanna say congrats on the new job!! 🎉 That's awesome and must be such a relief after being on unemployment.

One more thing to be aware of: if you earned more than your weekly benefit amount in that final week, you won't receive payment, but it's still important to file and report. It properly closes out your claim cycle and prevents any issues down the road. Good luck with the new position!

I want to clarify something important about the 'did not return to work and earn enough to qualify' message. This is separate from the Reasonable Assurance issue. It means the system is saying you didn't earn enough in your base year to qualify for a new UI claim. If your previous benefit year ended and you're filing a new claim, you need to have worked and earned wages in at least 680 hours during your base year. Double-check your base year wages in eServices to verify you met this requirement. If the information there is incorrect, you'll need to address that as well.

Have you tried going to WorkSource? Sometimes they have ESD people there who can look at your claim without going through the phone nightmare. That's what I did last year when I had an issue with my claim.

Update on my situation: I finally got my benefits released yesterday after 9 weeks of waiting! What finally worked was getting my state senator's office involved (thanks to whoever suggested that). Their constituent services staff contacted ESD directly and suddenly my claim was "prioritized." Seems wrong that it takes political connections to get what you're legally entitled to, but at this point I'm just relieved to have rent money. For those still waiting - don't give up, and definitely try the state representative/senator route!

@OP - Yes, it was indeed the able and available issue. Apparently the system had flagged me because I mentioned in one weekly claim that I had attended a family event out of state (was only gone for a weekend). That triggered the A&A review because they thought I might not be available for work. The ridiculous part is that once someone actually looked at my claim, it took them less than 10 minutes to resolve it. It just sat in a queue for 9 weeks with nobody looking at it!

YES!!! The money finally hit my account this morning! All 7 weeks came through as one lump sum. Exactly 6 business days after updating my banking info. Such a relief! Thanks everyone for your help and advice.

That's great news! Glad it worked out and didn't take too long in the end.

To clarify some of the information shared here: 1. The official weekly claim filing period is Sunday through Saturday, with Saturday being the final day to file for the previous week. 2. However, ESD does allow claims to be backdated if filed within the same week without penalty (hence the Tuesday references). 3. For technical issues specifically with claim filing, the technical support line (360-902-9500) is often faster than the regular claims line. 4. System performance is typically best Monday-Thursday between 7am-10am or 2pm-4pm. If you're consistently experiencing technical issues, document them with screenshots if possible. This can help if you need to request backdating due to system problems.

anyone notice how the site ALWAYS says maintenance is scheduled for sunday nights but they NEVER actually post when exactly? like maybe don't do system updates during peak filing times?? just saying...

lol good luck, system is totally broken. i waited 11 weeks last year and never got a single callback. ended up giving up and finding a job instead. whole things a joke

One thing nobody mentioned - if your claim is in adjudication, make absolutely sure you're still filing your weekly claims on time! If you miss weekly claims during the adjudication period, even if you eventually get approved, you won't get paid for those missed weeks. I learned this the hard way and lost out on about $2,800 because I thought "what's the point of filing if I'm still in adjudication?" Big mistake.

have you tried contacting the obusdman office? they help with stuck claims sometimes. my cousin did this and got his claim fixed in like 4 days after being stuck for months

UPDATE: I finally got through to ESD this morning! I took the advice about calling right at 7am, and after a 40-minute wait, I spoke with an agent. They said my claim is still in adjudication but confirmed they have all the necessary information from both me and my employer. The agent said they're currently working through claims from early November, so mine should be decided within the next 7-10 days. She also noted that performance-based terminations generally do qualify for benefits as long as there wasn't willful misconduct. Feeling much more hopeful now. Thanks everyone for your advice!

When I got a job after being on unemployment for 6 months, I just stopped filing claims. Years later I found out that was a bad idea because my claim wasn't properly closed and ESD thought I might have been working while collecting benefits. They did an investigation and everything. Definitely follow the proper process!

Thanks everyone for all the helpful advice! To summarize what I'll do: 1. File my claim for this week normally since I haven't started working yet 2. File next week's claim and answer YES to the question about returning to full-time work 3. Report my start date correctly as 5/15/2025 4. Update my WorkSource profile to show I'm employed I appreciate all the warnings about what NOT to do too - definitely helps me avoid potential problems!

make sure he checks all his past weekly claims still say "paid" not "pending" on the eServices dashboard. my boyfriend's claim got approved but 3 of his past weekly claims were still stuck in pending status and he had to call to get them fixed before getting paid

Just checking back - has your partner received the payment yet? It's been a few days since your post. One other thing to mention is that sometimes banks place holds on large deposits, especially first-time government payments, so even after ESD processes it, your bank might hold it for 1-2 business days. If nothing has shown up yet, I would definitely call ESD to verify the payment status.