This post will be updated as new guidance is published.

Key Changes

Here are the key changes to Unemployment based on the new Coronavirus Response and Relief Bill, signed into law on 12/27/2020.

1. Extra $300 a week – FPUC for 11 weeks of Unemployment
2. Extended Unemployment expiration (from Dec 31, 2020 to April 5, 2021 – last payment will be for the week ending 04/11)
3. Added 11 weeks to Unemployment, so everyone can get 50 weeks.

Federal vs State: Although it’s a federal bill, which applies to all states, each state has different Unemployment rules to begin with, and the bill leaves some aspects up to each state to decide. This post focuses on NY State.
Week Ending: Anytime we mention “week ending” it refers to a Sunday. In NY, Unemployment weeks go from Monday-Sunday and the week is often referred to as “week ending xx (Sunday)”.

Extra $300 a week for 11 Weeks (FPUC)

The new bill includes 11 weeks of FPUC (Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation), a $300 bonus on top of whatever you get from Unemployment. The 11 weeks are the weeks ending 01/03, 01/10, 01/17, 01/24, 01/31, 02/07, 02/14, 02/21, 02/28, 03/07, and 03/14.

You receive the full $300 for any week that you receive at least $1 in standard Unemployment payments. So if, for example, you worked 3 days in a week and thus lost 75% of your standard Unemployment amount, you will still receive the full $300. If, however, you worked 4 days in a week (or earned over $504) and therefore didn’t receive any standard Unemployment payments you also would not receive any of the $300. Basically, the $300 is all or nothing (similar to how it was with the first round of $600 FPUC).

Extended Unemployment & 11 Extra Weeks

Whoever is currently on PUA (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance) or UI (Unemployment Insurance aka “Regular Unemployment”), can continue collecting Unemployment at least for the next 11 weeks (until March 14, 2021), and in most cases up week ending 04/11/2021. You will also receive a $300 bonus for the next 11 weeks (from week ending January 3rd until week ending March 14).

• Currently Collecting: Simply continue certifying each week as you were doing until now.
• Used All Your Weeks: If you stopped getting Unemployment payments because you used up all your weeks, you can collect 11 more weeks of Unemployment starting from the week ending January 3, 2021. Make sure you certify each of the 11 eligible weeks.
  Note: Just because your payment history shows that you have zero effective days remaining, that does not mean that you finished all your weeks. To understand more, read ‘Effective Days Down to Zero? Don’t Worry.‘.
• Benefit Year Finished: If your benefit year finished (you could see that on your payment history page), put through a new application and you should receive 11 weeks of Unemployment starting from week ending January 3, 2021.

PUA

PUA is Pandemic Unemployment for people who are not eligible for regular Unemployment, including self-employed individuals or those with insufficient work history. PUA was scheduled to expire on December 31st, 2020. Now, with the new bill, it will expire after week beginning April 11th, 2021. So, if you are currently on PUA, you can continue collecting Unemployment until week ending April 11, 2021.

Besides extending the expiration, 11 weeks were added to PUA, so instead of there being 39 weeks of PUA, there are now 50 weeks. In places with high unemployment (like NY), there are now 57 weeks available.

Example: Anyone in NY who started PUA after March 8, 2020, will be eligible to continue getting PUA until the week beginning April 5, 2021, at which point the program expires, even if you did not use up all your weeks. If your claim started on March 1, 2020, then your last (#57) week of PUA would be 03/28/2021.

UI

UI has three separate types of Unemployment weeks. For now, no matter which type of weeks you are currently claiming, you can continue claiming weekly Unemployment, for the first 11 weeks of 2021.

1. Base Weeks: First 26 weeks of a claim. Those continue as before. Nothing changed with the new bill.
2. PEUC: The CARES Act provided 13 extra weeks, so 26 “base weeks” followed by 13 PEUC weeks. The new Covid-Relief bill added 11 more weeks to PEUC. So 26 “base weeks”, 13 “CARES Act” PEUC weeks and a further 11 Covid-Relief PEUC weeks. It also pushed off the expiration date to April 5, 2021 (week ending 04/11).
3. Extended Benefits: 20 weeks of extended Unemployment. This kicks in whenever a state has a high level of Unemployment, which NY has as of July 5, 2020. EB only applies to UI claims and not to PUA claims.

Extended Benefits (EB) and the New Unemployment Rules

• The rule is that if you started EB, you first finish all your EB weeks before starting PEUC.
• In NY we are currently in a High Unemployment Period (HUP) and therefore UI claimants have 20 weeks of EB. NY will most likely stay on HUP, at least for the next few weeks.
• The rule is that you cannot start PEUC (the extra 11 weeks from the new Covid-Relief bill) after March 14th. So although you can collect PEUC until week ending April 4, 2021, this is only if you already started the 11 weeks by week ending March 14th.
  • Scenario #1: Someone in NY applied for regular UI on March 15 and hasn’t been able to work since. They first received 26 “base weeks” of UI (03/15/2020 – 09/06/2020), followed by 13 weeks of PEUC (09/13/2020 – 12/6/2020).  Then, EB kicked in for 20 weeks (12/13/2020 – 04/25/2021). So in this example, the new bill doesn’t extend this person’s Unemployment at all, as their EB weeks continue after 04/04/2021. This person will still get an extra $300 for 11 weeks, based on the new Covid-Relief bill.
  • Scenario #2: Someone in NY was on Unemployment prior to Covid and their 20 EB weeks finished between 3/14/2021 and 4/11/2021. This person will not be able to collect PEUC for the remaining weeks until 04/11/2021.
  • Scenario #3: If NY goes off HUP (High Unemployment Period) after March 14, thus canceling EB, anyone who was on EB will not be able to start PEUC.
• Read more about EB at ChaiPlus1.com

Which Program Are You On?

UI Claimants: Base Weeks vs PUEC vs EB? In NY there is no way to see online which set of weeks you are currently collecting. You can’t even see how many weeks you have remaining. You first see your 26 weeks, then when you finish those 26 weeks, it just says “0” days remaining while you continue collecting. You would need to calculate yourself based on the above (or use this Excel Spreadsheet to help you). Or you can try calling the DOL.

New Claims

PUA

• New PUA claims will be accepted up until March 14th, 2021. Unclear if backdated claims will be accepted after that.
• If you are filing a new PUA claim with a backdated date, the new rules allow backdating to December 1st, 2020 (unlike the previous rules where claims can be backdated to January 27, 2020).
• If someone filed for PUA between Dec 27 and Dec 31 2020, it’s unclear if their claim can be backdated to December 1st or earlier.

UI

• New UI claims are always accepted. UI is not Covid-specific (even though most of us have never heard much about it until Covid).
• In ‘regular’ times, UI cannot be backdated. During Covid, many states allowed backdating UI to match PUA. So, will NY allow backdating? That remains to be seen. They may match PUA rules and only backdate to December 1st for UI claims as well. I will update when I have reports.
• Note: Minimum Weekly Benefit Amount for claims that have an effective date of 01/04/2021 and later is $108 (instead of $104).

Missing Back Weeks

If you have a current claim, check that you received all the weeks for which you were eligible – see ‘Guide How to Get Missing Unemployment Payments – NY’

The new bill specifically states that NEW PUA claims can only have an effective start date from 12/1/2020. I understand that to mean that claims that were started before 12/27/2020 with an effective start date earlier than 12/1/2020 (as early as 01/27/2020 – which was the rule in the original CARES Act) can still request payments for missing backweeks even after the new bill was signed. That being said, if you are missing payments from before 12/1/2020, try dealing with it ASAP, just in case they decide to stop paying for backweeks from before 12/1/2020 for existing claims as well.

Use this info to help you check if you are missing any payments. This spreadsheet can help you keep track.

PUA in NY

• 57 weeks of between $182 and $504 (depending on your prior earnings)
• 17 weeks (04/05/2020 – 07/26/2020) of  $600 – FPUC
• 6 weeks (08/02/2020-09/06/2020) of $300 – LWA
• 11 weeks (01/03/2021-03/14/2021) of  $300 – FPUC #2

UI in NY:

• 70 weeks (UI, EB, PEUC) of between $104 and $504 (depending on prior earnings)
• 17 weeks (04/05/2020 – 07/26/2020) of  $600 – FPUC #1 (CARES Act)
• 6 weeks (08/02/2020-09/06/2020) of $300 – LWA (Lost Wages Assistance)
• 11 weeks (01/03/2021-03/14/2021) of  $300 – FPUC #2 (Covid-Relief Bill)

Potential Issue with Back Weeks

You can’t use the new bill to help you be eligible for prior weeks from before the bill was signed. This would be an issue for someone who “ran out” of weeks before 12/27/2020. If that happened to you, then although the new bill added 11 weeks of Unemployment, you cannot use any of those 11 weeks for weeks before 01/03/2020.  If you are on PUA in NY this would be an issue only if you started PUA on 02/09/2020 or earlier – extremely unlikely in NY. If you are on UI and your original claim started before COVID and you finished all your base weeks, 13 weeks of PEUC, and 20 weeks of EB before 12/27/2020, then you will not be able to get paid for those missing weeks and will only be able to start collecting again from week ending 01/03/2020.

Further Unemployment Changes

No Overpayment Charges

• States are not required to demand repayment from PUA claimants who received funds they were not entitled to if it wasn’t the applicant’s fault. So if someone thought they were eligible and it turns out they weren’t, then as long as it’s decided that the applicant was not “at fault” for applying (or asking for a higher amount than $182), then States don’t have to ask for the money back.
• From the new bill “… In the case of individuals who have received amounts of pandemic unemployment assistance to which they were not entitled, the State shall require such individuals to repay the amounts of such pandemic unemployment assistance to the State agency, except that the State agency may waive such repayment if it determines that—
  (A) the payment of such pandemic unemployment assistance was without fault on the part of any such individual; and
  (B) such repayment would be contrary to equity and good conscience.”

Employer Reporting Refusal to Work

• The new bill includes a clause that employers should be given a method of reporting if anyone refuses an offer of employment (which could potentially affect eligibility for Unemployment).

Proof of Eligibility

• The new bill requires applicants to show proof of prior self-employment, employment, scheduled to start work or scheduled to start self-employment.
• From NY DOL: According to the Federal government, additional eligibility documentation will be required beginning January 31, 2021. The Department of Labor will directly contact claimants who need to provide additional documentation. The NY DOL will provide further guidance on how they plan to implement this rule.

W2 and 1099 – Extra $100 a Week – MEUC

• The new bill includes something called MEUC (Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation).
• Basically: Someone on UI (not PUA) who received their weekly benefit amount based off the W2, but has separate self-employed earnings of over $5,000 in the previous tax year (2019 for claims started in 2020) will get a $100 a week bonus.
• It’s unclear if you will get $100 a week even if you are already receiving the maximum weekly amount of $504 or only if you are currently receiving less than $504.
• It is also unclear if the extra $100 will be for people who already had their weekly benefit amount adjusted based on self-employed earnings.
• The NY DOL will surely publish guidance about this in the near future.