Update: just called the NY tax department and they confirmed this is 100% legit. Interest on government payments is always taxable. The lady I spoke to said they've been getting calls about this all day.

The whole unemployment tax thing was handled so badly from the start. First they tax the benefits during a pandemic, then they say 'oops nevermind' after everyone already filed, then they take MONTHS to send refunds, and now they want tax on the interest. What a joke.

I called the governors office and complained. They took down my info and forwarded it to some special dept at unemployment. Got a call back within 2 days and they fixed my missing payments from 2020. Worth a try!

check ur spam folder!! not kidding. my friend had a similar issue and turns out NYSDOL had been emailing him asking for additional verification but all the emails went to spam. once he submitted what they wanted he got paid within 2 weeks.

took 9 days for my account to update after the video call then another 3 days for money to hit my bank. they told me 14 days too but it was faster. video call lady was nice but the whole process was weird af, felt like i was applying for a top secret clearance not just tryin to get my unemployment lol

The whole ID verification thing is because of the MASSIVE amount of fraud happening with unemployment. My neighbor works for DOL and says they're catching hundreds of fake claims daily. It sucks for legit people like us but at least they're trying to protect the system. Mine took 13 days to process back in February.

Fun fact: NY unemployment system was built in the 1980s and runs on COBOL. They had to call retired programmers back during covid because nobody knows how to maintain it anymore. The whole system is literally held together with digital duct tape. 🤡

I was in your exact situation last year. Finally got through after using claimyr.com to reach an agent. Turns out there was a flag on my account because my former employer challenged my unemployment claim. The agent removed the hold and I got all my backpay two weeks later. Definitely worth trying!

If your claim says you didn't earn enough but you know you did, you NEED to talk to someone. I had the EXACT same issue and it turned out they had my employer's quarterly report missing. Once I got through and explained, they fixed it right away and I got backpay for everything. KEEP TRYING!

This whole thing reminds me of when I tried getting concert tickets back in the day. Site would crash, phone lines busy. The unemployment system is stuck in 1995 while trying to handle 2023 problems.