A half-billion jobs in Washington state’s jobless Recovery Act recovery are expected to be created in the coming months, and Gov.
Jay Inslee announced Wednesday that the state is expanding its jobless benefits, boosting its unemployment benefits to 50 percent of median wages by 2019 and creating thousands of new jobs.
Inslee’s announcement followed a news conference by Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and the state Department of Employment Security that showed the agency was on track to meet the deadline of its plan to boost benefits to 70 percent of the median wage by 2020.
“Washington is now on track for a half a billion jobs created in this state, which is a huge, huge step in the right direction,” said Inslee.
“We’re on track now to create a lot more than a quarter-billion new jobs, and we’re excited to continue working with other state and local governments and other federal partners to ensure they’re prepared to do the job of creating those jobs.” “
The vast majority of those jobs are going to be in the retail, hospitality, food services, and manufacturing industries, and that’s why the recovery plan has already made great progress,” Inslee added.
“We’re on track now to create a lot more than a quarter-billion new jobs, and we’re excited to continue working with other state and local governments and other federal partners to ensure they’re prepared to do the job of creating those jobs.”
A half million jobs In the recovery bill, Inslee signed into law a measure that provides $1 billion to expand the state’s unemployment benefits, up from $500 million previously approved by Congress.
The state is also providing $1.1 billion in unemployment benefits through an adjustment of the existing federal Unemployment Insurance Tax Credit (ITC) that began in 2019.
In a news release, the governor’s office said the state has now provided $1 million to every state household that has an income of $15,000 or less.
The governor’s announcement came after Perez and U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Tom Perez said that they expect to have more than half of Washington’s unemployed by December 2020, which would mean nearly 500,000 more jobs than previously projected.
In addition, the Labor Department is increasing the amount of money that the federal government provides each state in job training assistance to $1,000 a month.
The $1-billion increase is based on a report by the Washington State Department of Economic Development (WSDED), which projected that the jobless rate in the state would rise from 9.9 percent in 2019 to 12.9.3 percent in 2021.
In 2020, the unemployment rate in Washington will be 12.2 percent, up 0.6 percentage points from last year.
Insowes office said Wednesday that a half million more people are expected in Washington by the end of this year, which the governor called “the most optimistic figure in a decade.”
The governor said that the economic benefits are expected over the next few years, but it will be hard to keep pace with the pace of job creation in the next three years.
In his news conference, Insowessaid the state will have $1 trillion in available cash to provide for job creation.
“It’s going to require the most significant and sustained efforts of all state and federal agencies to get to this point,” Insowellaid.
“There’s going be a lot of work ahead.
We’ll be here until the end.”
In an interview with ABC News’ This Week, Insoweessaid Washington will have more jobs by 2021 than the state was expecting to get by the start of the year.
The president of Washington State Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jeff Hirsch, said he expects the state to be able to produce about 800,000 jobs in 2021, or about one in five jobs, by 2021.
“I think we’re very optimistic that we can keep this going through 2021 and beyond,” Hirsch said.
“As we get through this year and we have more work to do, I think we can do some pretty good numbers.”
The state has added 2.2 million jobs since the recession officially ended in December 2009.
In the next 10 years, the state expects to add a total of about 3.5 million jobs.