Is unemployment considered unearned income for NYS Department of Labor purposes?

Unemployment benefits are generally considered unearned income for most purposes. The NYS Department of Labor payments you receive aren't wages from employment, so they fall under the unearned income category. This affects things like SNAP applications, Medicaid eligibility, and other assistance programs. Make sure you report your weekly benefit amount when they ask about unearned income.

yeah its unearned income but some programs treat it differently than other types. like social security or disability payments. depends what your applying for

For federal tax purposes, unemployment benefits are taxable income but they're classified as unearned income. NYS Department of Labor benefits don't have taxes automatically withheld unless you request it, so you'll need to account for that when filing. Most assistance programs will count your UI benefits as unearned income when determining eligibility.

I had so much trouble getting through to someone at NYS Department of Labor to ask questions like this. Spent hours calling and either got busy signals or hung up on. Finally used claimyr.com to get connected to an actual agent - they have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI showing how it works. The agent was able to explain exactly how my benefits would be classified for different programs.

The whole system is so confusing! They should make this stuff clearer when you first apply. I'm dealing with the same thing trying to figure out what counts as what for different applications. Why can't they just give us a simple breakdown of how our benefits affect other programs?