How do I calculate my unemployment benefits amount in NYS?
I just got laid off from my job at a warehouse and I'm trying to figure out how much I'll get from unemployment. I made about $42,000 last year but my hours were all over the place - sometimes 25 hours a week, sometimes 50. I've been looking at the NYS Department of Labor website but the benefit calculator is confusing me. Do they use my total yearly earnings or just the highest quarters? And what about overtime pay - does that count toward the calculation? I need to know so I can budget for rent and bills while I'm job hunting.
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Katherine Ziminski
NYS uses your highest earning quarter from your base period to calculate your weekly benefit rate. They take that quarter's earnings, divide by 26, then you get half of that amount (up to the maximum). Your base period is the first 4 of the last 5 completed calendar quarters before you filed. So if you filed in January 2025, they'd look at your earnings from January 2024 through September 2024. Overtime definitely counts as wages.
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Kaiya Rivera
•Thanks! So if my best quarter was $12,000, I'd get about $230 per week? That seems low compared to what I was making.
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Noah Irving
yeah the formula is confusing but basically its half your average weekly pay from your best quarter. i think theres also a minimum and maximum amount though
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Vanessa Chang
The maximum weekly benefit for 2025 is $504, and there's a minimum of $104. Your calculation sounds about right - $12,000 divided by 13 weeks = $923 average weekly, so half would be around $461. But double-check your base period quarters on the NYS Department of Labor website under 'monetary determination' once your claim is processed.
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Kaiya Rivera
•Wait, I thought it was divided by 26? Now I'm more confused about the math.
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Katherine Ziminski
•You're both right - it's your highest quarter divided by 26, then you get half of that weekly amount. So $12,000/26 = $461, then half is $230.50 weekly benefit rate.
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Madison King
I had the worst time trying to get through to NYS Department of Labor to ask about my benefit calculation. Kept getting hung up on after waiting an hour! Finally used this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that calls for you and gets you connected to an actual person. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI showing how it works. Saved me so much frustration when I needed to verify my wage history.
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Julian Paolo
•Interesting, never heard of that before. Did they charge you a lot for the service?
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Madison King
•It was worth it to actually talk to someone instead of getting disconnected constantly. They focus on getting you through rather than making you jump through hoops.
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Ella Knight
The whole system is ridiculous if you ask me. Why can't they just make a simple calculator that actually works? I spent three weeks trying to figure out my benefits and even the NYS Department of Labor rep I finally reached gave me different numbers than what showed up in my account.
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William Schwarz
Don't forget you can also check if you qualify for the alternate base period if your regular base period doesn't give you enough wages to qualify. That uses the most recent 4 quarters instead of the first 4 of the last 5.
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