To: President Donald Trump, The Washington State House, The Washington State Senate, Governor Jay Inslee, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Restore Fairness and Equity to Unemployment Insurance
1. Unemployment insurance should be paid to all unemployed people who have paid into it and applied for it, the amount that they've paid in, without exception.
2. Unemployment insurance can no longer used to pay for retraining people.
3. One should be allowed unemployment insurance compensation, until one no longer has money in their individual unemployment account, and when an individual runs out of money in the account, the individual should not be allowed to claim on money that has not been paid into the system.
Why is this important?
One of the biggest problems in Washington State is that people have trouble navigating the unemployment insurance bureaucracy, in order to get to the compensation they desperately need in order to pay for work search expenses. People should have a right to the money that they've paid out of their paychecks to pay for state unemployment insurance compensation, regardless of what might transpire on the job. Its only fair that one should expect the services one pays for.
It should not be the states position to have to pass judgement on an individual's work performance, and pit the employee against the employer in cases of termination. As it currently stands, the government is forced to judge against the individual and make determinations that affect the individual's right to work. Lets help restore compassion to the system, and save hundreds of thousands of people from homelessness, by making sure that the unemployment insurance system is used only for the purposes of paying unemployment insurance, and not for judging individuals according to potentially biased employers' opinions of their work performance, social stereotypes, or other reasons that have nothing to do with the need to find a job.
Retraining people doesn't pay people money, but a paying job does. If one wants to retrain, one should apply for government grants and loans, not apply for unemployment insurance.
Help petition to change this law so that its fair and equitable and give us all the rights to the money that we've paid into the system to use to look for work; when we need it the most.