Does unemployment give you back pay - NYS Department of Labor retroactive benefits question

Yes, you should definitely get back pay! When NYS Department of Labor approves your claim, they typically pay you retroactively from your original filing date. This is called retroactive benefits and it's standard practice. You should see those back payments in your next deposit or within a few business days. Make sure you've certified for all those weeks though - you need to go back and file your weekly claims for each week you were waiting.

same thing happened to me earlier this year, took forever to get through adjudication but i got all my back pay once it was approved. think it was like 5 weeks worth for me

The back pay should be automatic once your claim is approved, but sometimes there are glitches in the system. If you don't see the retroactive payments within a week, you'll need to call NYS Department of Labor to have them manually process the back weeks. I had to do this when my claim was delayed due to ID verification issues. Getting through to an agent can be really frustrating though - the phone lines are always busy and you often get disconnected. I actually found this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that helps you get through to NYS Department of Labor agents. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI that shows how it works. Saved me hours of calling and getting hung up on.

The NYS Department of Labor SHOULD give you back pay but honestly their system is so messed up sometimes things fall through the cracks. I've seen people wait months for retroactive benefits that should have been automatic. Don't just assume it'll happen - keep checking your payment history and if you don't see those back payments within 10 business days, start making noise. File an appeal if you have to. This system is designed to make you give up and just accept losing money you're entitled to!

Wait I'm confused about this too because I thought you had to file your weekly claims to get paid? Like if you don't certify for a week you don't get benefits for that week? How does back pay work if you couldn't file weekly claims while your account was locked during adjudication???

This reminds me of when my sister went through something similar last year with her unemployment claim. She had some issue with her last employer not responding to NYS Department of Labor requests for information and her claim was stuck for like 2 months. When it finally got approved she did get all her back pay but it took forever and she had to call multiple times to make sure everything was processed correctly. The whole experience was really stressful for her because she has kids to feed and bills to pay. Honestly the unemployment system in this state really needs an overhaul, it's ridiculous how long these things take.

I went through this exact same situation a few months ago! My claim was held up for about 5 weeks due to some confusion with my separation reason. When it finally got approved, I did receive all the back pay automatically - it showed up as separate line items for each week I had missed. The key thing is that you need to make sure you go into your account and complete the weekly certification for each of those back weeks. There should be a section that lets you certify for previous weeks once your claim is active. If you don't see that option, definitely call them because sometimes the system doesn't automatically generate those back weeks for certification. The back pay for me came in two deposits - one smaller one a few days after approval and then the bulk of it about a week later. Keep checking your payment history and don't hesitate to follow up if it doesn't appear within 2 weeks!