NYS Department of Labor earning allowance unemployment - confused about work limits
Can someone explain what earning allowance means for unemployment benefits? I just started a part-time job making $18/hour for about 15 hours a week and I'm worried about how this affects my weekly claim. The NYS Department of Labor website mentions something about an earning allowance but I don't understand if I can keep working this job or if I need to report it differently. My benefits are $320 per week and I really need to keep getting something while I look for full-time work. Do I still file my weekly claims the same way?
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Justin Chang
Yes, you can work part-time and still collect unemployment in NY! There's a specific earning allowance formula the NYS Department of Labor uses. You can earn up to 25% of your weekly benefit rate without any reduction. So with $320 weekly benefits, you can earn up to $80 without losing any unemployment money. After that, they reduce your benefits dollar-for-dollar for every dollar you earn over the allowance.
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Wesley Hallow
•Wait so if I make $270 in a week from my part-time job, I would only get $50 in unemployment benefits? That seems like it barely makes working worth it.
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Grace Thomas
i think thats wrong, my cousin worked part time and lost all her benefits when she made too much one week
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Justin Chang
•If you earn more than 1.5 times your weekly benefit rate in any week, you get zero benefits for that week. So for $320 benefits, if you earn more than $480 in one week, no unemployment payment. But you can still file your weekly claim for the following week.
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Hunter Brighton
Make sure you report ALL earnings when you file your weekly claim. The NYS Department of Labor will find out anyway through wage reporting and you could face penalties for not disclosing. Report gross earnings before taxes, not your take-home pay. I learned this the hard way when I got an overpayment notice for $1,200 because I reported net instead of gross earnings.
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Wesley Hallow
•Oh no! How long did it take them to catch that mistake? I definitely want to report everything correctly from the start.
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Hunter Brighton
•About 3 months later I got the notice. Had to appeal it and provide all my pay stubs to prove it was an honest mistake. The appeal process took forever too.
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Dylan Baskin
I had similar issues reaching someone at NYS Department of Labor to clarify the earning allowance rules. The phone lines are impossible to get through. I ended up using a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that actually got me connected to a real person within 30 minutes. They have a video demo showing how it works: https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI. Worth checking out if you need to speak with someone directly about your specific situation.
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Lauren Wood
•How much does that cost? Seems sketchy to pay someone to make a phone call for you.
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Dylan Baskin
•It's not about making the call for you - they help you get through the busy signals and wait times. I was spending hours trying to call myself with no luck. Sometimes you just need to talk to an actual person to understand your specific situation.
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Ellie Lopez
The NYS unemployment system is SO confusing about this stuff. I've been unemployed since December and still don't understand half the rules. Why can't they just make it simple - if you work, you lose benefits. Instead we have all these calculations and formulas that nobody explains clearly.
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Justin Chang
•The earning allowance exists to encourage people to take part-time work while searching for full-time employment. It prevents the 'benefits cliff' where working a few hours would make you worse off financially.
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Chad Winthrope
Just keep filing your weekly claims and be honest about your earnings. The system will calculate everything automatically when you enter your gross wages. Don't overthink it too much.
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