EMPLOYMENT SECURITY — The Employment Security Department is starting to get questions from federally funded workers who want to know if they qualify for unemployment benefits if they are furloughed due to federal sequestration. If you’re covering this topic this week, the following information may be useful for you.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

The answer is: it depends.

1. If workers who normally work full-time are furloughed one day a week over a period of time, they’re not eligible for unemployment benefits because they earn too much in that week to be eligible.
2. If full-time workers are furloughed for most or all of a week (Sunday through Saturday), then they should be eligible for benefits, assuming they meet other eligibility requirements.

• However, the first week an individual is eligible to receive benefits is considered to be a “waiting week.” Unemployment benefits are paid only for the second and subsequent weeks of unemployment. 
• The weeks would not have to be contiguous. The waiting week initially opens a worker’s unemployment claim and establishes the beginning of a worker’s “benefit year.” Then, if there’s another week (or most of a week) of furlough a month or two later, s/he could file a “weekly claim” and receive benefits – and so on, for additional furlough weeks.  (Once the waiting week has been served, there isn’t another one during that benefit year.)

Sheryl Hutchison, Communications Director, Employment Security Department 360-902-9289