How to increase unemployment benefits amount in NYS - what are my options?
I'm currently getting $280 a week in UI benefits from NYS Department of Labor and I'm struggling to cover my basic expenses. I worked part-time at two different jobs last year - one at a retail store making $15/hour and another doing food delivery on weekends. My rent alone is $1,100 a month so this benefit amount isn't even close to covering my bills. Is there any way to get my weekly benefit amount increased? I keep hearing people talk about different ways to calculate benefits but I don't understand how it all works. Has anyone successfully gotten their benefit amount adjusted upward?
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Daniela Rossi
Your weekly benefit amount is calculated based on your highest quarter of earnings during your base period (the first 4 of the last 5 completed quarters before you filed). If you had multiple employers, NYS Department of Labor should have included wages from ALL of them when calculating your benefit. You might want to check your monetary determination letter to make sure they counted all your wages correctly.
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Sophie Hernandez
•I think they only counted my retail job wages. How do I get them to include my delivery work? That was definitely reported income with taxes taken out.
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Ryan Kim
same boat here, getting like $240/week and it's impossible to live on that amount. the whole system is broken if you ask me
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Zoe Walker
You need to request a wage correction if they missed any of your employers. Call NYS Department of Labor and ask them to review all your wage records - sometimes employers don't report wages properly or there are data entry errors. Also check that your base period calculation is correct. If you have wage stubs or tax documents showing higher earnings that weren't counted, bring those as evidence.
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Sophie Hernandez
•Calling has been impossible - I've tried dozens of times and either get disconnected or stuck on hold for hours. Is there another way to request this review?
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Elijah Brown
•I had the same problem reaching NYS Department of Labor by phone. Someone here recommended Claimyr.com - it's a service that calls for you and gets you connected to an actual agent. They have a demo video at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI showing how it works. Worked for me when I needed to fix a wage issue, saved me probably 10+ hours of trying to get through myself.
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Maria Gonzalez
wait I'm confused - I thought once your benefit amount is set that's it? can you really get it changed after your claim is already approved?? I've been getting the same amount for 8 weeks now
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Daniela Rossi
•Yes, if there was an error in calculating your wages or if wages were missing from certain employers, you can request a redetermination. The key is proving that NYS Department of Labor didn't count all your eligible wages when they calculated your weekly benefit amount initially.
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Natalie Chen
One thing to check - were you working under the table for any of that delivery work? Because if it wasn't properly reported as W-2 or 1099 income, NYS Department of Labor won't count it toward your benefit calculation. All your earnings need to be documented with proper tax reporting to qualify for the calculation.
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Santiago Martinez
I got my benefits increased by $85 per week after I proved they missed wages from a seasonal job I had. Took about 3 weeks to get it corrected but they also paid me the difference retroactively for all the weeks I had already claimed. definitely worth pursuing if you think they made an error
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Sophie Hernandez
•That's encouraging! Did you have to provide specific documentation or did they find the missing wages themselves once you pointed it out?
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