Why Am I Not Getting My Unemployment

I Run A Nonprofit Organization And Am A Reimbursing Employer Under My States Unemployment Insurance Program Due To The Economic Impacts Of The Covid

Contact your state unemployment insurance office to learn what options may be available for delaying reimbursement payments. The CARES Act allows states to provide maximum flexibility to reimbursing employers as it relates to timely payments in lieu of contributions and assessment of penalties and interest. The U.S. Department of Labor will soon be issuing guidance on how states should implement this provision.

What Affects Your Weekly Unemployment Benefits

To qualify for Unemployment Insurance benefits, each week, you must be:

• Physically able to work
• Available to work
• Actively looking for work

You may also be required to register with a Career Center to complete mandatory seminars to stay eligible for unemployment benefits.

If you physically cant work, arent available to work, or arent looking for work, we will send you a questionnaire and place your benefits on hold. Your benefits will stay on hold until you are determined to be eligible again based on the information you provided on your questionnaire. If you are disqualified from receiving benefits, you may file an appeal.

Unemployment Compensation Benefits Disqualification

Every personâs situation is different. But there are several situations in which the claimant is generally disqualified from receiving weekly benefit amounts from the state unemployment insurance program. You may be disqualified and ineligible for benefits if you:

• Quit without good cause

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This Spring I Received A Letter From Ides Indicating I Had Transitioned To A New Benefit Year I Have Been Unemployed Since April 2020 If Federal Programs End Does This Mean My Payments Will Stop

If you had not worked and earned at least three times your weekly benefit amount since the beginning of your first benefit year , your benefits were transitioned to a federal extension. All federal programs end on September 4, 2021, so that will be the last week of benefits payable to you. However, you might be eligible for one week of extended benefits.

Filing An Initial Claim

What information do I need to file a new application?

When filing a new application, you will need the following information:

• Your Social Security number
• Full mailing address, including apartment or lot number, Zip Code and PO Box if you use one
• A phone number where you can be reached during the day
• The name and mailing address of your last employer, no matter how long you worked there
• Note: Your paycheck stub or W-2 form usually contains this information
• The date you began and stopped working for each employer and the reason you left each job for the last 18 months
• The county in which you live
• Your driver’s license number
• If you are not a citizen or national of the United States, your employment authorization number and expiration date
• If you were active duty military within the past 18 months, your DD-214, Member #4 form
• If you were a federal employee, your Standard Form SF-50 or pay stub
• Any separation, vacation, or holiday pay you have received or will receive in the future.

A record of your application will not be established unless you are told your claim has been accepted. If you are unable to complete your application, the information you have entered will be saved for 7 days from the date you began filing the claim so that you can complete it later and within 7 days.

What if I have wages earned in another state, the military, or the federal government?

Go to GetKansasBenefits.gov and click to file an online application for unemployment insurance if:

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Filing A Weekly Claim

When do I file my first weekly claim for payment?

• File your first weekly claim on Sunday afternoon or evening or Monday before 7 p.m. after filing your unemployment claim in the previous week. For example: If you filed your initial application on Tuesday you should file for your first week of unemployment on the following Sunday or Monday. You may file weekly claims on the Internet or telephone.
• The calendar week for unemployment compensation purposes runs from midnight Sunday to midnight the following Saturday. You may file on any day of the week, Sunday through Saturday, but filing early in the week assures the most prompt payment. You will not receive a benefit payment until that week has been claimed. If you do not file within 14 days, your claim will become inactive and you will have to file an application to re-open your unemployment claim.
• You must file each week to be eligible for your weekly payment.
• If there is a state or bank holiday, your payment will be delayed.

What information do I need to file a weekly claim for payment online or by phone?

You will need the following information to file a weekly claim for payment:

There is no toll-free phone number available for the Weekly Claim Line. We recommend that you file your weekly claims online to avoid long-distance charges.

What questions will I be asked?

You will be asked a series of questions when you file a weekly claim.

How do I file my weekly claim online?

Do I have to claim every week or can I skip weeks?

Proving Eligibility For Unemployment Insurance Benefits

The best way to prove that youâre eligible for unemployment insurance benefits is to keep good written records of what happened when you lost your job, what you did after you lost your job, and what you have been up to since losing your job. The reason for your job loss is important to the state unemployment insurance agency and how they interpret state law.

Sometimes you may not be clear about why you lost your job. An employer may say you acted inappropriately when you really didnât, or they may indicate that you quit a job when you were actually laid off or fired without a good reason. This is why collecting evidence and documenting everything related to your job separation and your job application efforts are critical to proving your eligibility while you are unemployed.

If you are denied benefits, you have the right to appeal. If you file an appeal, you are responsible for showing that you are, in fact, eligible for unemployment benefits. If you quit for good cause, it is up to you to demonstrate that you did have an illness, for example. Or if there were abusive or unsafe working conditions, you need to show that you attempted to address them before quitting and that your former employer failed to do anything about it.

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Your States Unemployment System Is Antiquated

According to reporting by The Washington Post, the District of Columbias unemployment website was based on 1950s programming language. It was also built in the early 2000s, before smartphones. That meant that anyone without access to a desktop or laptop computer has to make a claim by phone. Whats more, a single pandemic-related change to unemployment benefits took computer programmers more than two weeks to implement.

You May Be Missing Documents In Your Application

While every state has individual documentation requirements, most applicants are generally required to submit their Social Security number, drivers license, information about their employer, reason for leaving, first and last day worked, among other questions.

If youre missing any of these documents or forgot to include something with your application that your individual state specifically requests, it might be holding up your claims.

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The Great Realization Has Inspired People To Seek Happiness In Their Jobs And Careers

2. Call the appropriate STATE legislator that represents you. They verify you live in their district, so be sure to reach out to the appropriate congressperson. Emails seem to take longer to get a response, so calling is faster as members of State Legislatures have people answering their phones.

3. Tell them your problem with unemployment and ask for their help. The congressmens office will have a designated person inside their office who handles unemployment issues. That person will tell you that they can connect to unemployment on your behalf and that they have been assigned a real person at the unemployment office to work with. They get you info, and then they work their magic. Youll find that they either fix the problem or get someone who can fix it at unemployment to call you. Give them a number you will answer. If it is your cell, be sure the ringer is on as unemployment will only call you once or twice, and if you miss them, there is no number to call them back. Do not miss the call.

4. The problem should get resolved within a week, and all the money due you will then be paid to you retroactive to the day you first filed for unemployment.

Joe emailed to say this strategy of contacting his state representative worked for him. It worked for my relative too, and the other ten people I have advised to try it. They were in different states, and it has been effective. Once your unemployment money starts, you file each week and get paid. Problem solved.

Need To Finalize Identity Verification

Since the beginning of the year, the EDD has asked hundreds of thousands of people to verify or re-verify their identities. Most people are being asked to do this through ID.me, but Silver said some people are missing a final step needed to finish the process.

ID.me shows you a green checkmark and it emails you at the end of your ID verification process, Silver said. Now many claimants miss the very last step of the ID verification process and aren’t aware that they miss a step because there’s kind of a misleading message that pops up. The ID verification on ID.me will tell you after you have scanned your ID document and after you’ve done your video selfie ID.me will tell you this is complete. And then very small down below it says now return to your browser and complete the last step, and so many people miss that.

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Why Didn’t I Receive My Full Benefit Payment This Week

One reason could be because you had excessive earnings for the week you are claiming benefits.

Excessive earnings are when your wages for that week equal or exceed your Weekly Benefit Amount . In order to receive unemployment benefits your earnings cannot exceed 1.5 times your weekly benefit amount. To calculate your earnings for the week multiply your hourly rate of pay by the number of hours you worked during the week .

If you are earning income from a part time job or are still working, but with reduced hours , you are required to report gross earnings for each week you work and certify for benefits. You must report your total gross earnings , for the week in which you performed the work, NOT the week in which you received the payment.

Other reasons that you could have earnings include vacation pay, pension or retirement, bonus pay, holiday pay or severance pay.

When certifying each week online or by phone, be sure to answer yes when asked if you worked during a specific week. Then report your total earnings before deductions.

You Might Not Have Answered A New Application Question Correctly

Trumps executive order didnt just create an entirely new pool of money for state UI administrators, but it also added an additional step to the application: Individuals must certify that the coronavirus pandemic is the underlying reason why theyre either fully or partially unemployed.

Thats proven to be quite tricky for applicants. Wary about answering questions wrong, many Americans mark no, even if their job or income disruption is in some way related to the pandemic. And if you fall into this category, you might technically be receiving a reduced weekly benefit. But it wouldnt be the full amount granted through Trumps executive order.

I would argue that anyone unemployed right now is unemployed because of the pandemic, Evermore says. People are getting the question with no context, so they dont even know whether to answer yes to this question. If states were clear about why they were asking that would be helpful too.

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What Determines If I’m Able To Work Available For Work And Actively Seeking Work

To be considered able to work, an individual must be mentally and physically capable of performing a job in an occupation where jobs exist.

To be considered available for work, an individual cannot impose conditions on the acceptance of work if those conditions essentially leave them with no reasonable prospect of work.

To be considered actively seeking work, an individual must reasonably try to return to work. An individual cannot refuse a suitable job offer or they could lose eligibility for benefits.

Other Weird Things About Unemployment Benefits This Month

Some of you received a letter from the Department of Labor about overpayments. Heres what to do about that.

Last year, the DOL erroneously sent out duplicate payments to an unknown number of New Yorkers, through no fault of those receiving the benefits. But now, since it was federal money lost in the mixup, the law requires that the DOL try to get it back.

If you are one of these people, the DOL would have notified you about the overpayment through email, text and a letter earlier this month. If you dont take action, the DOL can reduce your weekly benefits by a certain percentage until the money is recovered.

You have two other options:

• If you dont think the overpayment letter is correct, meaning you did not receive an extra payment from the DOL, then you can request a hearing to dispute the claim.
• If its correct, meaning you received the payment but it wasnt your fault, then you can apply for waiver for financial hardship. If you request a waiver within 30 days of being notified about the overpayment and are approved, you dont have to pay it, according to DOL officials.

Salk from Legal Services NYC said: Theres no risk in doing it as long as youre truthful.

You should have received instructions to request a hearing or a waiver in your email. If you didnt, you can message the DOL through your ny.gov account.

Taxes! You still have to pay New York State taxes on your unemployment benefits even those the feds waived. Heres what that means.

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Why Havent I Received My Unemployment Benefits

With no help in sight, people like Harris are turning to elected officials, lawyers, and even social media for help. Harris is part of the Unofficial California Unemployment Help Facebook group, which has drawn more than 56,000 members since it was started in March.

When asked via email what is causing the delays, the California EDD cited unprecedented demand for unemployment benefits. The EDD says it has processed 11.9 million combined claims for the regular unemployment insurance program, as well as the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.

Many states operate unemployment systems that are sorely out of date or didnt have the staff to handle this deluge of applications. The states are catching up, but if there is anything wrong with your application, you could get lost in the mix, says Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the progressive, independent think tank The Century Foundation.

If your application gets flagged and your states unemployment agency lacks the resources to resolve your issue, you could get stuck, says Stettner, who has over 20 years of experience as an unemployment insurance policy advocate.

This is what happened to Mikaelah Pagan, who found her way to the same Facebook group as Harris. She says she filed for unemployment with the EDD the day she lost her food service job and waited four months to receive benefits.

How Much Money Will I Receive If I Decide To File For Unemployment Benefits

Generally, your payment will be a percentage of your prior earnings, up to a cap set by state law. Although states differ in how they calculate benefits, a typical formula pays half of the employee’s former weekly wages, up to a maximum amount that varies widely from state to state. To continue receiving benefits, you will have to file a claim every week or two. The claim form will ask about any amounts you’ve earned during the claim period, your efforts to find work, and so on. For more information, see Nolo’s article Unemployment Benefits: How Much Will You Get?.

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You Accidentally Answered A Question Incorrectly

According to reporting by ABC7 News in San Francisco, a confusingly worded question that many people answered incorrectly caused their California unemployment payments to get stuck on pending for weeks. The question asked people who were recertifying their qualification for benefits if there was any reason besides sickness or injury that they couldnt work.

Many people answered yes, because the pandemic was the reason they were out of work, but the system was set up assuming that people would answer no even if the pandemic was causing their unemployment. Their applications then got categorized as requiring an interview with an unemployment department representative, creating delays that can take weeks to resolve.

What If I Quit My Job Because I Am Generally Concerned Over The Covid

An individual who leaves work voluntarily generally cannot receive UI. Your eligibility in this situation will depend on whether you can demonstrate you had a good reason for quitting, and that the reason was because of your employer. You generally must make a reasonable effort to work with your employer to resolve whatever issues made you consider quitting.

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