How much do you collect for unemployment in NY - confused about benefit amounts
I'm trying to figure out how much I'll actually get from NYS Department of Labor unemployment benefits. My job laid me off last month and I filed my claim but I'm getting different numbers everywhere I look. My friend said she gets $504 a week but I thought the max was lower? My last job paid me $68,000 annually and I worked there for 2 years. Does anyone know the actual formula they use to calculate weekly benefits? I'm stressed about making rent if the amount is too low.
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Diego Castillo
NYS Department of Labor calculates your weekly benefit rate using your highest earning quarter from your base period. For 2025, the maximum weekly benefit is $504. Your benefit amount is typically about half of your average weekly wage, but it can't exceed that $504 max. Since you made $68k, you'll probably get close to the maximum if you worked consistently.
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Ruby Knight
•Thanks! So they look at my highest quarter, not my total annual salary? That makes more sense.
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Logan Stewart
i get $467 a week and i made around $60k last year so sounds like you should get close to the max
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Mikayla Brown
The NYS Department of Labor formula is: take your highest quarter earnings, divide by 26, then you get roughly half of that as your weekly benefit. But there are minimums and maximums. If you can't get through to them by phone to check your exact amount, I found this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that helps you actually reach NYS Department of Labor agents. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI showing how it works. Really helped me when I was stuck trying to get my benefit calculation explained.
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Ruby Knight
•Oh interesting, I've been trying to call for days but keep getting the busy signal. I'll check that out.
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Sean Matthews
Wait I'm confused about the base period thing. They told me my base period was like 15 months ago not recent quarters? This whole system makes no sense sometimes
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Diego Castillo
•Your base period is the first 4 of the last 5 completed calendar quarters before you filed. So if you filed in January 2025, your base period would be October 2023 through September 2024. It's not your most recent work unfortunately.
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Ali Anderson
The NYS Department of Labor website has a benefit calculator but honestly it's pretty confusing to use. I just waited until my first payment to see what I actually got. Ended up being $489 per week which was better than I expected.
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Zadie Patel
Don't forget about taxes! They don't automatically withhold federal taxes from unemployment benefits so you might want to elect to have them taken out or set money aside. I learned this the hard way last year.
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Ruby Knight
•Good point! I didn't even think about that. How do I set up tax withholding?
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