How much money can you make while on unemployment in NY without affecting benefits?
I'm getting $320 a week in unemployment benefits from NYS Department of Labor and have an opportunity to do some freelance work for my old company. They want to pay me about $200-300 per week for project work I can do from home. I know you're supposed to report earnings but I'm confused about how much I can actually make before it starts reducing my weekly benefit amount. Does anyone know the exact rules for this? I don't want to mess up my claim but I really need the extra income.
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Ally Tailer
You can earn up to 25% of your weekly benefit rate without any reduction. In your case that would be $80 per week ($320 x 0.25 = $80). Anything above that gets deducted dollar for dollar from your benefits. So if you earn $200, you'd lose $120 from your weekly claim ($200 - $80 = $120 reduction). Make sure to report ALL earnings when you file your weekly claim or you could face an overpayment notice later.
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Callum Savage
•That's way less than I thought! So basically if I make $300 a week I'd only get $100 in unemployment benefits? That doesn't seem worth it then.
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Aliyah Debovski
wait i thought it was different than that?? i've been making like $150 a week at my part time job and still getting most of my benefits. maybe i'm doing something wrong lol
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Ally Tailer
•You need to check your benefit calculation carefully. If you're not reporting that income properly, NYS Department of Labor will eventually catch it through wage crossmatching and you'll get hit with an overpayment demand.
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Miranda Singer
The 25% rule is correct but there's also the total earnings limit to consider. If you earn more than 1.5 times your weekly benefit rate in a week, you get zero benefits for that week regardless of the 25% calculation. In your case that would be $480 ($320 x 1.5). So earning $300 would give you $100 in benefits, but earning $500 would give you nothing for that week.
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Cass Green
•This is so confusing! Why can't they just have a simple chart or calculator on the my.ny.gov website?
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Finley Garrett
I had a nightmare situation with this last year. I was doing some consulting work and thought I was reporting everything correctly, but apparently I made some mistakes on my weekly claims. NYS Department of Labor sent me an overpayment notice for $4,200 six months later! I tried calling them for weeks but could never get through to explain what happened. Finally found this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that actually got me connected to a real person at NYS Department of Labor within hours. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI showing how it works. The agent helped me understand the calculation and I was able to appeal the overpayment successfully.
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Callum Savage
•Wow, that sounds terrifying. How does that service work exactly? Do they just help you get through to someone?
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Finley Garrett
•Yeah basically they handle all the calling and waiting on hold, then connect you when they get an actual NYS Department of Labor agent on the line. Way better than sitting on hold for hours just to get disconnected.
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Madison Tipne
THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS DESIGNED TO SCREW US OVER!! They make the rules so complicated on purpose so we mess up and then they can claw back money later. I've been fighting an overpayment for 8 months now and they still haven't responded to my appeal.
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Holly Lascelles
•I feel your frustration but the rules are actually pretty straightforward once you understand them. The key is just being super careful about reporting ALL income and keeping good records of what you earn each week.
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