.svg) | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1947 (1947) |
| Jurisdiction | State of Washington |
| Employees | 2,300 (2023)[1] |
| Annual budget | $945.3 million (2023-2025)[1] |
| Agency executive |
|
| Website | esd |
TheWashington State Employment Security Department is a government agency for theU.S. state ofWashington that is tasked with management of theunemployment system. It was established by theWashington State Legislature in 1947, replacing an earlier system.[2] The department has been led by commissionerSuzan G. LeVine, the formerU.S. Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, since 2018.[3]
The Washington State Department of Social Security was created by the legislature in 1937 with divisions to manage the state'sunemployment benefits andemployment offices.[4] It was originally located in theOld Capitol Building in Olympia but outgrew its offices and was later furnished a separate headquarters building in January 1947. The Department of Social Security was reorganized into the Employment Security Department in the 1947 legislative session.[5] The department used large computers to process payments and data; by 1957, it had 65IBM machines with 440,000punch cards to process records for 600,000 workers in the state.[6]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the state unemployment system was the target of an internationalfraud scheme fromNigeria that cost over $650 million in losses. The system had processed claims for 30.8 percent of civilian workers in Washington, the highest of any state in the United States.[7] The fraud ring, namedScattered Canary by security researchers, had also filed fraudulent unemployment claims in six other states and is under investigation from theU.S. Department of Justice.[8] By early June, the state government had recovered $333 million out of the $650 million lost to the fraud scheme. The ESD had also implemented stricter reviews for unemployment claims that were later rolled back.[9] In August, the ESD announced that benefits for 86,449 fraudulent accounts totaling $576 million had been paid out, of which $340 million had been recovered.[10]
The ESD'strust fund originally held $4.7 billion in March 2020, but was reduced to $2.8 billion within three months and is expected to be depleted by 2021.[11][needs update]
