When was unemployment the highest? Trying to understand California EDD history

The ID.me thing is interesting — I did complete that when I applied but I'm not 100% sure it fully went through. Is there a way to check if EDD actually received it?

No confirmation screen in UI Online unfortunately. If it didn't fully verify you'd usually get a DE 1326C in the mail asking you to verify identity. If that letter hasn't showed up and you completed ID.me, you're probably fine — but if you haven't gotten any mail from EDD at all yet, it may just be processing time.

the 2020 spike was absolutely insane, I remember reading EDD had like 10 million claims in a matter of months. Put everything on its knees.

Wait so the ID.me flag wouldn't necessarily show up anywhere in my UI Online account? That's exactly the kind of thing I'd never know sitting here refreshing the page.

Exactly — UI Online just says Pending with nothing else. The agent was the one who saw the flag on the backend. Once I handled the DE 1326C my weeks cleared pretty fast.

Two of my pending weeks were also an ID issue and I had no clue. Good to know the agent can actually see what's holding it up.

I've been going through the same loop of calling and getting cut off. Might try that route for my own claim, I need to ask about a phone interview date.

So the $450 max has been the ceiling for a while? That seems low given California rents.

Yeah, the weekly cap is $450 and it's been that way for a few years. Your actual amount depends on your highest-earning quarter in the base period — EDD runs the calculation and puts the number on your Notice of Unemployment Insurance Award, the DE 429Z, once your claim processes. The EDD Benefit Calculator on their site can give you an estimate before the award letter arrives.

450 a week in the Bay Area is basically nothing lol. I got $388 and it covered maybe half my rent. The system is so outdated.

agreed the cap is wild, hasn't kept pace with anything

Physical mailbox — I honestly haven't been checking it as religiously as my email. Good call.

EDD does not send emails about your claim status or missing documents, so the mailbox is really the only way to catch those notices. UI Online shows some things but not everything.

I missed a DE 1326C because I wasn't checking mail and it caused a huge delay. Don't make my mistake.

The speed of the 2020 jump is what gets me. Normal recessions build slowly, that one was like a cliff edge.

Right, most recessions show unemployment creeping up over 12-18 months. 2020 was two months. The EDD phone lines were essentially useless for about a year.

Makes sense why the system still feels creaky even now. I keep hitting walls just trying to check on a two-week pending claim.

Tuesday 8am is real, that worked for me once out of maybe fifteen tries

Consistency is key — I called at exactly 8:00:00 basically. Even thirty seconds late and the queue fills up.

I've been trying random times during the day which is probably why I keep getting the high call volume message. I'll try the Tuesday morning thing.

Wednesday mornings have also been decent for me, skip Monday for sure

The who-got-hit difference is really important. Lower-wage workers have almost no cushion so the 2020 crisis felt more acute even if the duration ended up being shorter.

Exactly. And a lot of those workers were also navigating EDD for the first time, which made the phone and online system even more overwhelmed.

the retail and restaurant collapse hit so fast there was no warning at all

CalJOBS is a whole separate thing I need to make sure I completed. How do you post the resume in there? I registered but I'm not sure I actually posted one.

You log into CalJOBS at caljobs.ca.gov, go into your account and there's a resume builder section — you have to actually publish it, just creating it isn't enough. EDD can see whether it's published or not.

This is a common one. People register and think they're done but posting the resume is a separate required step, and you usually need to do both within 21 days of the date on your DE 8405 notice.

Adjudication over last day of work usually means EDD got different info from you and your employer and needs to sort it out. That does often require talking to someone because the online account doesn't show those details.

Yeah I figured as much. The employer gave a different separation date than I did, I think. Getting anyone to explain what's happening has been impossible.

getting disconnected after a long hold is genuinely demoralizing, happened to me three times in one week

For the adjudication — EDD should have scheduled a phone interview if there's a conflict with your employer. Check UI Online's homepage and your mailbox for the DE 4800 notice, it'll have the interview date and time on it.

I got something in the mail but I think it might be that letter actually — it had numbers on it and something about award. I didn't realize what it was at first.

That's the DE 429Z. The weekly benefit amount on there is what EDD calculated from your earnings. If anything looks wrong compared to what you actually made, you can appeal it in writing within 30 days of the mailing date.

A lot of people overlook that the DE 429Z can be appealed if the wage calculation is off. The base period pulls from the first four of the last five completed quarters, so a recent raise might not fully show up and that's normal, not an error.

The 1935 Social Security Act connection is real — California was actually one of the states that moved quickly to set up its own UI system right after federal law made it possible.

Right, and the structure has been patched and updated since then but the bones of how it works — base period wages, weekly benefit amount, employer-funded — are basically the same framework from the 1930s.

Oh I did not know that — I was actually thinking about pausing certifications until things cleared up. Glad I didn't.

Keep certifying every two weeks regardless. If the hold gets resolved EDD goes back and pays the certified weeks. Uncertified weeks are gone.

This should be the first thing EDD tells you when you apply, seriously. I didn't know it either the first time.

And if you have an appeal going at some point, same rule applies — certify through the whole appeal period so there's something to pay if you win.

The employer saying you quit when you were laid off is infuriating. That's such a common tactic too.

EDD said the employer bears the burden of proving misconduct if they claim a firing, but a quit requires me to show good cause. Since I was actually laid off neither of those applied — EDD just had to verify the facts.

Actually to be a bit more precise on that — EDD's rule is that if you quit, you have to show you had a good reason, and if you were fired, the employer has to prove there was misconduct. A layoff is different from both and you're right that it shouldn't trigger either of those burdens.

Right, that's a better way to put it. In my case once EDD talked to both sides and confirmed the layoff it resolved pretty quickly.

The backlog effect is real. EDD hired a lot of temporary staff during the peak years and as those contractors left, some of the institutional knowledge went with them.

And a lot of people who filed claims during 2020 and 2021 are still dealing with overpayment notices, identity issues, or adjudications that were never fully resolved at the time.

I actually don't have any adjudication issue that I know of — just a standard layoff. But I'll keep that DE 4800 information in my back pocket.

Even a standard layoff can sometimes trigger a quick interview if EDD has questions about your earnings or the separation. It's not a bad sign if it happens, just means EDD needs to confirm some details before releasing payment.

I missed my interview time once and had to phone EDD the same day to explain. They were able to reschedule but only to an open time slot they had, so it delayed things by a couple weeks.

The threshold is about $1,300 in one quarter of your base period, or $900 in your highest quarter with total base period wages at least 1.25 times that. EDD runs those numbers automatically, so most people who worked a full quarter will have a valid claim.

Right, and if the standard base period doesn't work because of recent job changes, EDD can look at the alternate base period — the most recent four quarters — but only if the standard one doesn't produce a valid claim on its own.

I didn't know there was an alternate base period option. I had a weird year with two different jobs and was worried my wages wouldn't qualify.

Employer wages not being posted sounds like something that would be totally invisible from my end. I had no idea that could cause a pending situation.

The agent said it happens more than people realize — employers have a window to report wages and some take longer than others. EDD can't finalize your weekly benefit amount until they have those numbers.

If the wages don't show up and you think your employer should have reported them, that's exactly the kind of thing worth getting an agent on the line for.

The aerospace collapse in SoCal in the early 90s was really its own category of economic disruption. Whole neighborhoods in Long Beach and Palmdale built around those jobs just went sideways.

And unlike a retail or restaurant closure where workers might find similar work nearby, losing an aerospace engineering or manufacturing job meant either retraining or relocating, which isn't easy.

The early 90s defense contraction is a good example of a structural unemployment shift rather than a cyclical one — the jobs didn't come back when the economy recovered, they were just gone.

Reported wages affecting a week makes sense — I was actually debating whether to report some temp work I did for one week. Sounds like I definitely should.

Always report it. EDD has a formula where the first $25 or 25 percent of what you earned that week — whichever is bigger — doesn't count against you, and the rest gets subtracted from your weekly amount. So you still get something, just not the full benefit.

That's right. Full-time work in a week is different — that ends eligibility for that entire week. But part-time or temp work just reduces the payment using that formula.

Reporting wages honestly is also just the safer move. Underreporting can create an overpayment situation that's much more painful to deal with later.

Publishing the CalJOBS resume is probably the most important thing you've done this week. That draft status could have held up payments indefinitely. The DE 8405 notice should have a date on it — make sure you're within the 21-day window from that date.

$312 is a real amount to work with. If it seems lower than expected compared to what you earned, double-check the base period quarters the DE 429Z references — sometimes wages from a recent quarter don't fall in the standard base period window and that's why the number is what it is.

The DE 429Z does show the quarters they used. My most recent quarter isn't in there, which probably explains why the number is on the lower end. I make more now than I did 18 months ago.

That's the base period working as designed, not an error — it pulls from the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters. A raise in your most recent job may land outside that window. The alternate base period only helps if the standard one doesn't get you to a valid claim at all, not to increase the amount once you're already eligible.