How to determine how much unemployment you will receive from NYS Department of Labor?
I just got laid off from my manufacturing job after 8 years and I'm trying to figure out what my weekly unemployment benefit will be. I was making about $58,000 annually but my hours varied quite a bit over the past year due to overtime and some reduced shifts. Does NYS Department of Labor use your highest quarter or your total earnings? And do they count overtime pay? I've heard different things from coworkers about how they calculate it. Has anyone gone through this recently and can explain how the benefit amount gets determined?
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Mateo Rodriguez
NYS Department of Labor uses your highest quarter earnings from your base period (first 4 of the last 5 completed quarters before you filed). They take that amount, divide by 26, and that's your weekly benefit rate up to the maximum of $504 per week in 2025. Yes, overtime counts as part of your wages. You can actually estimate this yourself by looking at your quarterly earnings on your my.ny.gov account.
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Nia Thompson
•Thank you! So if my highest quarter was $16,500 that would be about $635 per week, but capped at $504? That actually sounds right based on what I was expecting.
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GalaxyGuardian
mine took forever to calculate correctly because i had two different jobs in my base period and they had to verify both employers. just be patient if your situation is complicated
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Aisha Abdullah
The formula is straightforward but getting through to someone at NYS Department of Labor to verify your calculation can be really difficult with their phone system. If you need to speak with an agent about your benefit amount, I had good luck using Claimyr (claimyr.com) - they have a service that gets you through the phone queue automatically. There's a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI that shows how it works. Really helped when I had questions about whether my commission payments were being counted correctly.
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Ethan Wilson
•How much does that cost though? I'm trying to avoid spending money I don't have while waiting for benefits to start.
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Aisha Abdullah
•It's worth checking out their site for current pricing, but for me it was better than spending hours trying to get through myself and never connecting.
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Yuki Tanaka
Wait I'm confused - I thought they used your total annual earnings? My cousin said they look at everything you made in the past year and divide by 52 weeks. That's not right?
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Mateo Rodriguez
•No, that's not how NYS Department of Labor calculates it. They use your highest quarter from the base period, not annual earnings. A lot of people get confused about this because other states do it differently.
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Carmen Diaz
Just went through this last month. One thing to watch out for is if you had any gaps in employment or if you're seasonal - that can affect your base period and you might not qualify for the full amount even if your highest quarter looks good. Also make sure all your employers reported your wages correctly because I had to dispute mine when one job didn't report properly.
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