How much can you make while collecting unemployment in NY - confused about earnings limits

You can earn up to 25% of your weekly benefit rate without any reduction. In your case, that's about $105 per week. Anything above that will reduce your benefits dollar for dollar until you hit a certain threshold. With $300 weekly earnings, you'd likely lose most or all of your unemployment for that week, but you can still file your weekly claim and report the earnings.

yeah you HAVE to report all earnings no matter what. i made that mistake once and they hit me with an overpayment notice months later. not worth the hassle trust me

The exact formula is a bit more complex than just 25%. NYS Department of Labor allows you to earn up to 1/4 of your weekly benefit rate without penalty. Beyond that, they subtract your excess earnings from your benefit amount. But there's also a minimum benefit threshold - if your calculated benefit falls below $64, you get nothing for that week. You should definitely keep filing your weekly claims and let the system calculate it for you.

I've been dealing with this exact situation for months. The key thing is to keep detailed records of all your earnings and hours worked. NYS Department of Labor will sometimes audit your claims later, and you want to have everything documented. Also make sure you're still doing your job search requirements even during weeks when you work - that's a common mistake people make.

Getting through to NYS Department of Labor to ask about this stuff is nearly impossible. I tried calling for weeks about a similar earnings question. Finally found this service called Claimyr at claimyr.com that actually got me connected to a real person at the unemployment office. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI showing how it works. Saved me so much frustration trying to get a straight answer about my part-time work situation.

just report everything and let them figure it out thats what i do. the system is confusing on purpose i swear

One more important thing - make sure you understand the difference between gross and net earnings. NYS Department of Labor wants your gross earnings before taxes and deductions when you file your weekly claim. And remember, even if you earn too much to get benefits for a particular week, you're still maintaining your claim and using up one of your benefit weeks.

I went through something similar last year when I was on unemployment and picked up freelance work. One thing that helped me was creating a simple spreadsheet to track my weekly earnings and calculate what my benefit reduction would be before I filed each claim. That way I wasn't surprised by the amounts. Also, don't forget that if you work more than 3 days in a week, even if you're under the earnings threshold, it can still affect your benefits. The day limit is separate from the dollar limit, which nobody ever mentions. Good luck with the temp job!