What was unemployment like in 2020 Washington ESD - system completely overwhelmed?
I'm trying to help my sister understand what happened with Washington ESD back in 2020. She's filing for unemployment now and keeps hearing horror stories about 2020. Was the system really as bad as people say? I remember hearing about massive delays and people waiting months for benefits. What was unemployment actually like in 2020 with Washington ESD? Did anyone here go through that mess?
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Aisha Mohammed
Oh wow, 2020 was absolutely brutal with Washington ESD. The system completely crashed from the volume. I filed in April 2020 and didn't see a penny until August. Four months of waiting, calling hundreds of times a day, never getting through. The website would crash constantly, you couldn't even log in most days.
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Luca Ricci
•Four months?! That's insane. How did you survive financially during that time?
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Ethan Campbell
•same here, filed in march 2020 and got my first payment in july... had to borrow money from family just to eat
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Yuki Watanabe
2020 was when everyone discovered how broken the unemployment system really was. Washington ESD went from processing maybe 5,000 claims a week to 100,000+ claims practically overnight. They had to bring in people from other state agencies just to answer phones. The adjudication process that normally took 2-3 weeks was taking 12-16 weeks.
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Carmen Sanchez
•I remember they kept saying 'we're working as fast as we can' but nothing was happening for months
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Luca Ricci
•So is the system better now or are we still dealing with those same problems?
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Andre Dupont
If your sister needs to reach Washington ESD now, she should definitely use Claimyr. I wish I had known about it back in 2020! It's a service that helps you actually get through to ESD agents instead of calling hundreds of times. Check out claimyr.com - they even have a demo video at https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ that shows exactly how it works.
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Zoe Papadakis
•Never heard of that before, does it actually work?
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Andre Dupont
•Yeah it really does! I used it last year when I had an adjudication issue. Got through to an agent the same day instead of calling for weeks.
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ThunderBolt7
2020 was when I learned what 'adjudication' even meant lol. My claim sat in adjudication for literally 5 months. FIVE MONTHS. And when I finally got through to someone they said there was never actually an issue, the system was just backed up. Lost my apartment, had to move back with my parents at 32 years old.
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Luca Ricci
•That's heartbreaking. I'm so sorry you went through that.
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Jamal Edwards
•This is exactly why I have zero faith in government systems. They fail when you need them most.
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Ethan Campbell
the phone system was the worst part... you'd call 600 times and get busy signal every single time. then when you finally got through you'd wait on hold for 4 hours just to get disconnected
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Mei Chen
•I kept a tally sheet! Called 847 times in one week and got through exactly zero times.
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Yuki Watanabe
•The phone system capacity was designed for normal times, not pandemic-level unemployment. They had maybe 200 phone lines for the entire state.
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Liam O'Sullivan
At least now there are tools like Claimyr to help with the calling nightmare. Back in 2020 we were all just hitting redial manually for hours. The service basically automates the calling process so you don't have to sit there all day.
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Amara Okonkwo
•How much does something like that cost though?
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Liam O'Sullivan
•Way less than the stress and lost time from calling manually. Plus they show you exactly how it works with that demo video.
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Giovanni Marino
Your sister is lucky she's filing now instead of 2020. The system is still not great but it's night and day compared to then. In 2020 they were still using computer systems from the 1980s that couldn't handle the load. They've upgraded some things since then.
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Luca Ricci
•That's somewhat reassuring to hear it's better now.
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Fatima Al-Sayed
•Better is relative... I still waited 6 weeks for my claim to process last year
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Dylan Hughes
2020 taught me to keep detailed records of EVERYTHING. Every phone call attempt, every website error, every email sent. When I finally got through to Washington ESD they had no record of half my previous contact attempts.
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NightOwl42
•Smart advice! I wish someone had told me that when I was going through my claim issues.
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Luca Ricci
•I'll definitely tell my sister to document everything from the start.
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Sofia Rodriguez
The fraud issues in 2020 made everything worse too. Washington ESD had to shut down payments for weeks while they tried to figure out which claims were legitimate. Honest people got caught up in that mess.
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Dmitry Ivanov
•Yeah I remember that! They froze thousands of legitimate claims because of the fraud investigation.
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Yuki Watanabe
•The fraud verification process added another 4-6 weeks to claim processing times on top of everything else.
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Ava Thompson
Honestly if I had to file for unemployment again I'd use that Claimyr thing from day one. Would have saved me so much stress in 2020 if it had existed then.
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Miguel Herrera
•Same here. Anything to avoid the endless calling and busy signals.
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Luca Ricci
•I'm definitely going to look into that for my sister. Thanks for the recommendation!
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Zainab Ali
The worst part about 2020 was that Washington ESD kept giving different information depending on who you talked to. One agent would say one thing, another would completely contradict them. There was no consistency.
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Connor Murphy
•YES! I was told three different things about my job search requirements by three different agents.
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Giovanni Marino
•That's because they were training new staff so quickly. Most of the people answering phones had only been there a few weeks.
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Yara Nassar
2020 was when I learned that 'pending' doesn't mean it will be processed soon, it means it could sit there for months with no movement at all.
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StarGazer101
•My claim showed 'pending' for 14 weeks straight. No updates, no communication, nothing.
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Luca Ricci
•That must have been so stressful not knowing what was happening with your claim.
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Keisha Jackson
At least your sister is filing now when there are better resources available. Back in 2020 we were all figuring it out as we went along with no help.
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Paolo Romano
•True, now there are services and tools that can actually help you navigate the system instead of just suffering through it.
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Luca Ricci
•I'm grateful she won't have to go through what you all did in 2020. Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences.
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