Washington State Employment Security Department sent this bulletin at 05/27/2021 10:00 AM PDT
May 2021 | Issue 1
WA Cares Fund: Welcome to WA Cares
Knowing there’s money set aside for care in the future gives your employees peace of mind today. The WA Cares Fund makes affordable long-term care coverage available to all Washington workers. Here’s a quick overview.
Employers don’t contribute to the fund.
You’ll begin collecting premiums from your employees Jan. 1, 2022.
Wage reports and payments will be filed the same way they are now for Paid Leave.
There’s plenty to know about WA Cares, and we’re committed to making your experience as easy as possible by providing the tools and info you need.
Visit ouremployer pageand learn about WA Cares and what to expect.
Keep an eye out for future employer newslettersand get regular WA Cares updates.
Webinars and presentations coming soon!Our WA Cares team begins hosting webinars in early fall. We’ll be walking you through process updates for easily reporting just once for both the Paid Leave and WA Cares programs. Stay tuned!
Paid Leave: Resources for supporting your success
Employers play a huge role in Paid Family and Medical Leave. By law, you’re responsible for notifying your employees about the program, collecting premiums, and filing reports. But your employees may also come to you with questions if they need to take time off to give or receive care.
Check out paidleave.wa.gov for tools to support your success with all aspects of the program.
Visit the Help Center for answers to frequently asked questions, technical instructions for the reporting process and setting up accounts, plus downloadable resource materials.
Reference our Employer Toolkit for an overview of the program and a paystub insert to help you inform your employees about the benefit. The guide also has tips on premium collection and how to prepare reports.
Unemployment Insurance: Navigating benefit charges and billing
Navigating account billing for UI benefits, with many new state and federal programs, can be difficult. We’re helping by updating the UI Tax webpage, where information about current rates, new tax relief and recent changes is available.
If online information isn’t providing the answers, our UI tax teamhelps by answeringquestions and solving problems. A few topics we're answering about now:
Fraud reporting:If you see charges on your employer account you think are fraudulent, we may not know about it. You should report it to our fraud team by visiting the Unemployment benefits fraud webpage, scrolling down to Employers, and following the instructions.
SharedWork employers: When workers’ hours are reduced by more than 50% (or less than 10%), they are paid with regular UI benefits. Federal funding doesn’t cover these charges, meaning your employer account is charged for these benefits.
Adjusting charges on UI accounts: Recent legislation included tax relief, like not charging accounts for benefits paid from federal funds. Learn more from our April update.
Upcoming conferences and symposiums
WIN with SharedWork!
You’re invited to register and attend the first-ever virtual SharedWorkconference on June 8 & 9, where you can learn how to speed up recovery from the pandemic using business-friendly government programs.
REGISTER NOW for virtual 2021 ESD Economic Symposium: A Post-Pandemic Roadmap to Economic Recovery
Join experts and colleagues from across the state on June 15 & 16 at ESD’s all-virtual Economic Symposium to find out the latest on the post-pandemic economic recovery topics that everyone is talking about! Check out the Symposium website to learn more and register.
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