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My cousin just got a new job, which starts on Sept 23. It is much lower pay (70% pay cut) than previous job which ended in Sept 2012. He has not worked at all since then.
In Washington State, you have to earn 6x weekly benefit amount and have 680 hours in a base year to qualify for a new state claim.
My cousin will meet both of these requirements (via working on new job) in November.
Ideally, he could file a new state claim now (before the calendar rolls over to the 4th quarter) and would lock in the max benefit. And then in November he would qualify for that claim based on meeting the earnings test. This would allow him to have the max weekly benefit in case he gets laid off from his new job.
I'm assuming his claim would get rejected though and he would have to wait until November at which point he will be able to pass the tests for a new claim.