NYS Department of Labor earnings disregard - confused about what this means for my unemployment claim

The earnings disregard is basically the amount you can earn from work each week before NYS Department of Labor starts reducing your unemployment benefits dollar-for-dollar. In New York, you can earn up to 25% of your weekly benefit rate without any reduction at all. So if your weekly benefit amount is $200, you could earn up to $50 and still get your full $200 unemployment payment. Anything over that $50 gets deducted from your benefits.

Actually it's a bit more complicated than just the 25%. There's also a flat $50 earnings disregard that applies regardless of your benefit amount, then the 25% calculation. NYS Department of Labor uses whichever amount is higher. So you take 25% of your weekly benefit rate OR $50, whichever gives you more money to earn without penalty.

this system is so confusing!! why cant they just say earn X dollars and lose Y benefits instead of all these percentages and minimums

I was struggling with getting through to NYS Department of Labor about this same question for weeks. The phone lines are constantly busy and when I did get through they just referred me back to the website. I ended up using a service called Claimyr that actually got me connected to a real person at claimyr.com. They have this demo video at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI that shows how it works. Finally got my earnings disregard question answered properly and they explained exactly how my part-time work was affecting my benefits.

Just make sure you're reporting your earnings correctly on your weekly claims. I made the mistake of not reporting some cash tips early on and ended up with an overpayment notice months later.

The whole partial unemployment thing is actually pretty generous compared to other states. At least NYS Department of Labor lets you work part-time and still collect something rather than cutting you off completely once you earn a dollar.

For your situation earning $180/week with a $220 benefit rate, here's how it works: Your earnings disregard would be the higher of $50 or 25% of $220 (which is $55). So you can earn up to $55 without any benefit reduction. Since you're earning $180, that's $125 over the disregard amount ($180-$55=$125). Your unemployment benefit gets reduced by that $125, so you'd receive $95 instead of the full $220 ($220-$125=$95). Plus you keep your $180 from work, giving you $275 total weekly income. The system is designed to incentivize work while still providing support.

I went through this same confusion when I first started working part-time while on unemployment. One thing that really helped me was keeping a simple spreadsheet to track my weekly earnings and benefits so I could see the pattern. Also, if you ever have weeks where you earn less (like if you get fewer hours), your unemployment benefit will automatically adjust upward again. The system recalculates every week based on what you report, so it's not like you're locked into that $95 amount forever. Just make sure you're always honest about your earnings - the penalties for underreporting are serious and they do cross-check with employers.