{"id":13728,"date":"2008-12-30T12:31:59","date_gmt":"2008-12-30T20:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/storm-stranded-workers-may-qualify-for-unemployment-benefits\/"},"modified":"2016-10-22T07:10:27","modified_gmt":"2016-10-22T14:10:27","slug":"storm-stranded-workers-may-qualify-for-unemployment-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/business\/storm-stranded-workers-may-qualify-for-unemployment-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Storm-stranded workers may qualify for unemployment benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Workers who lost pay because their employer closed due to the December snow storms potentially qualify for unemployment benefits, according to officials at the Washington State Employment Security Department.<\/p>\n<p>However, unless the business was closed for more than a week, these employees would not receive an unemployment check, since benefits are not paid for the first week that a person becomes unemployed.<\/p>\n<p>Employees who lost pay because they could not get to work, while their employer remained open, are not eligible for unemployment benefits.<\/p>\n<p>To apply for benefits for past weeks, workers must apply by phone at 800-318-6022 and request that their application be backdated.  Unfortunately, the online application system, at www.esd.wa.gov, cannot handle backdated claims.<\/p>\n<p>Because of high call volumes, callers may experience a long wait before speaking to a claims agent.  Wednesdays and Thursdays typically have the shortest waiting periods. The office will be closed on Jan. 1 for New Year\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Workers who lost pay because their employer closed due to the December snow storms potentially qualify for unemployment benefits, according to officials at the Washington State Employment Security Department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13728"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}