Stuck in 'pending' for 6 weeks despite employer not contesting - finally contacted Governor's office

The Governor's office escalation is absolutely the right move. I went through something similar in February - stuck in pending for almost 5 weeks despite my employer confirming they weren't contesting. After the Governor's escalation, my claim was processed within 3 business days and I received all my back payments at once. Make sure you keep filing your weekly claims during this waiting period so you'll get paid for all weeks once approved. The system is swamped with claims right now due to several large tech layoffs in the area.

the govs office does nothing they jsut forward it to esd and then esd ignores it anyway trust me ive been thru this 3 times since 2025 started. try your state rep office instead they sometimes help better

I'm curious - did you receive any kind of adjudication notice or fact-finding questionnaire? Sometimes claims go to pending because ESD needs more info but the notification gets lost in the system. My husband's claim sat pending for weeks until we discovered there was a fact-finding questionnaire buried in his eServices account that we never got notified about!

I had a 9-week pending nightmare with ESD last year that finally got resolved through a service called Claimyr. After I couldn't reach an ESD agent for weeks, Claimyr got me connected to an actual human at ESD within about 30 minutes. The agent was able to see that my claim was stuck because of a system flag that needed manual review. Once I got through to someone, it was resolved that same day and I was paid the following week. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ?si=26TzE_zGms-DODN3 Website is claimyr.com. Since you already have the Governor's escalation in process, maybe give that a few days first, but keep this as a backup option if you don't see movement.

I suspect part of the issue might be the 2025 updated ESD systems. They made some "improvements" (LOL) to their claims processing in January that have caused massive backlogs. Even uncontested claims are getting flagged for review. My neighbor who works at ESD (not in claims processing though) says they're dealing with a technical issue that's causing claims from multi-employee layoffs to get randomly flagged for extra verification. Something about duplicate employer accounts in their new system.

make sure ur fiiing ur weekly claimseven while pending!!!!! i didnt do this and lost 3 weeks of benefits they wont backdate it no matter who u talk to TRUST ME

The pending status is frustrating but normal right now. ESD is dealing with a 48% increase in claims since December due to the hiring freezes and layoffs in tech and healthcare. Here's what you should be doing while waiting: 1. Continue filing weekly claims 2. Make sure your job search activities are documented (3 per week) 3. Check all tabs in eServices for hidden questionnaires 4. Verify your identity documents are properly uploaded 5. Watch for correspondence in both eServices AND your physical mail The Governor's escalation should help, but also consider contacting your district's state representative as they can sometimes push things through different channels.

After being stuck in pending for 7 weeks, I finally got approved yesterday! My advice is to keep calling ESD every single day, multiple times per day, at different hours. I finally got through at 7:32 AM right when they opened. The agent told me my claim had been flagged for manual review because my employer had two different UBI numbers in the system (they had restructured). Once a human looked at it, it was approved in minutes. The system is broken but persistence pays off.

I've been calling at exactly 7:29 AM, then immediately redialing if I get the busy message. Sometimes it takes 15-20 attempts, but that timing worked twice for me. The worst part is that once the claim is approved, it's literally just a button they push on their end. My adjudicator said it took her about 2 minutes to actually review and approve my claim once she got to it in the queue.

I'm going through something very similar right now - laid off from a healthcare company 4 weeks ago and still stuck in pending despite having all my documentation uploaded and my employer confirming they won't contest. The lack of communication from ESD is the most frustrating part. You literally have no idea if your case is being worked on or just sitting in a digital pile somewhere. I didn't know about the Governor's office option until reading your post - thank you for sharing that! I'm definitely going to try that route if I don't hear anything by next week. The phone system is absolutely useless. I've probably called 100+ times and never gotten through to a human. Really hoping your escalation works quickly. Keep us updated on how it goes - this whole thread is giving me some hope that there are ways to get unstuck from this broken system.