Reader Question: I am receiving unemployment benefits and I think I should be getting more than what the DOL is currently giving me. What are my options?

 

Getting PUA? Read Why am I getting only $182 a week?

IN SHORT
If you earned money prior to collecting unemployment and you think that you should be receiving more than you are currently getting, then act quick! You have a time limit from receiving your ‘Award Determination Letter’ to ask the DOL to change your benefit amount.

Remember, there should currently (April-July) be two payments each week: the “state” unemployment amount and separately $600 (FPUC). If you are already receiving $504 + $600 a week, then you are already receiving the maximum amount, so there is nothing further you need to do. If you are getting less than $504 + $600, you may be eligible for more. 

There are three basic scenarios where you can ask the DOL to increase your unemployment payments:

1. There was an error with your earnings amount or they are missing employment information (e.g. second job)
2. You want the DOL to look at a different time period of your work history
3. You want the DOL to look at your weekly pay

FURTHER DETAILS

Award Determination Letter
Keep an eye out for the “Award Determination Letter” in the mail. This letter explains why you are receiving the amount that the DOL calculated that you should receive. If you think that you should be receiving more than you are getting, act fast! 

Depending on your circumstances, you have 10-30 days to notify the DOL if you want your payment amount adjusted. Even if the time limit has passed, send back the form regardless. They will probably be more lenient – especially as this letter is often delayed during Covid, often arriving weeks later. So just deal with it as soon as you can.

Unemployment Amount
The basic premise is that unemployment benefits are based on prior earned income. In NY, it’s 50% of prior earned income, up to a maximum of $504 a week. This sounds simple enough. However… The DOL seems to have perfected the art of taking this very basic concept and making it extremely complex 🙂

When assessing how much unemployment you should receive, the DOL looks at your income for the previous 18 months. Whatever happened prior to 18 months before your unemployment filing day irrelevant.

Quarterly Earning
The DOL unemployment calculations are based on quarters. The year is split into four quarters: Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep and Oct-Dec. To put it simply: They divide your quarterly employment earnings by 26 to reach your unemployment benefit amount. Why divided by 26? That equals 50% of your earnings. A way to understand this calculation is to take your quarterly earnings x 4 (4 quarters in a year) to reach your yearly earnings. Now take that number, divide by 52 (weeks in a year), divide that number again by 2 (50% of your earnings) = what you are meant to be receiving each week. 

For example, if your quarterly earning were $5,000 a quarter, these two calculations are the same:

$8,000 X 4 (quarters) /52 (weeks) /2 (50%) = $307.69 (weekly benefit amount)

$8,000 / 26  = $307.69 (weekly benefit amount)

To make things slightly more interesting: If the highest quarterly earnings is $3575 or less, then your unemployment benefits are quarterly earnings divided by 25. If the highest quarter was under $2,600, then you don’t get anything from regular unemployment and instead get PUA.

Interesting to note that the lowest PUA rate (which you can be eligible for irrespective of prior earnings) is $182 a week, $78 a week higher than the lowest regular unemployment rate, which is $104. So if your highest quarterly earning is under $4732 a quarter, you are actually better off with PUA.

Award Determination Letter
When you receive your ‘Award Determination Letter’, have a look at what it has down as your quarterly earnings. The first step is to check if those numbers are indeed correct and match your records. To figure out your “quarterly earnings”, simply add your total of three months of pay.  

If there is a mistake or they are missing other income, complete the ‘REQUEST FOR RECONSIDERATION‘.

$4732
If you look at your award letter and see that it says you earned $4,732 a quarter, that most likely does not mean they verified your income and that’s how much you earned, it is most likely manipulating the system to get to the magic $182 number, as 4,732/26 = $182. This means you were likely given the default PUA amount. 

Base Pay vs Alternate Pay
As mentioned above, the DOL looks at the previous 18 months of work. That’s not exact. They look at complete quarters, so it’s 18 months back from the end of the current quarter. Say someone lost their job March 15th 2020 (and that is the date from when they are claiming unemployment), then March 15th is in the middle of the quarter of Jan-Mar 2020. So there are an additional 5 quarters before the current quarter (Oct-Dec 2019, Jul-Sep 2019, Apr-Jun 2019, Jan-Mar 2019 and Oct-Dec 2018). 

By default the DOL only looks at income from the first 4 quarters (quarters #1, 2, 3 and 4), called the “Base Pay” and they only look at the income from those 4 quarters. They generally look at the highest quarter, unless you didn’t earn income in all four quarters, in which case they look at the average of the highest two quarters. 

If you earned a higher income in quarter #5, Use the ‘REQUEST FOR ALTERNATE BASE PERIOD‘ form to ask the DOL to look at your income from quarters #2, 3, 4 and 5 instead. This is what the DOL calls the ‘Alternate Base Period’.

Weeks vs Quarter Average
What happens if you worked only certain weeks and now because they are averaging out your earnings over an entire quarter, you are getting less than 50% of your average weekly earnings? You can ask the DOL to use your weeks instead of the quarter average, as long as you worked a minimum of 20 weeks within the base period. The DOL will then give you 50% of your weekly earnings instead of 50% of your quarterly earnings. If this will result in you getting a higher rate, complete the ‘REQUEST FOR RATE BASED ON WEEKS OF EMPLOYMENT‘ form.

Further Reading

• The DOL published a PDF titled ‘HOW YOUR WEEKLY UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BENEFIT PAYMENT IS CALCULATED‘ explaining the calculation they use for unemployment benefits.
• Try out the ‘BENEFIT CALCULATOR‘ to see what you should be getting based on your prior income and filing date.