What are credit weeks for unemployment benefits in NYS - confused about eligibility
I'm trying to understand what credit weeks mean for unemployment eligibility in New York. I've been working part-time jobs for the past year and my NYS Department of Labor account shows something about credit weeks but I don't really get what that means for my claim. Do I need a certain number of credit weeks to qualify? I worked about 25-30 hours per week at different retail jobs but wasn't always making the same amount each week. Can someone explain how this works?
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Jacob Lewis
Credit weeks are basically weeks where you earned enough wages to count toward your unemployment eligibility. In New York, you need to have worked and earned wages in at least 2 quarters during your base period to qualify for UI benefits. Each week you earn over a certain minimum amount (currently around $143) counts as a credit week. You generally need at least 20 credit weeks or meet the alternative earnings requirement.
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Mia Rodriguez
•So if I was working 25-30 hours at $15/hour most weeks, those would count as credit weeks? That's like $225-450 per week so definitely over $143.
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Amelia Martinez
yeah i think i had like 28 credit weeks when i applied last year and got approved no problem
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Ethan Clark
The credit weeks requirement can be tricky if you had inconsistent work. NYS Department of Labor looks at your base period (usually the first 4 of the last 5 completed quarters) and counts weeks where you earned at least the minimum threshold. If you don't have enough credit weeks, they might use the alternative base period which looks at the most recent 4 quarters. You can check your quarterly wage history in your my.ny.gov account to see exactly how many credit weeks you have.
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Mia Rodriguez
•I checked my account and it shows wages for all 4 quarters but I'm still confused about how to count the actual weeks. Is there a way to see the exact credit week count?
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Ethan Clark
•Unfortunately the online system doesn't show your credit week count directly. You'd need to call NYS Department of Labor to get that specific information, but I know how impossible it is to get through to them. There's actually a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that helps people get connected to actual agents - they have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI showing how it works. Might be worth trying if you need that detailed breakdown.
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Mila Walker
UGH the credit weeks thing is so confusing!! I had the same issue when I applied and NYS Department of Labor kept saying I didn't have enough but never explained exactly what I was missing. The whole system is designed to confuse people and deny claims IMO.
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Logan Scott
•I feel you! The unemployment system seems intentionally complicated sometimes.
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Chloe Green
Wait are credit weeks the same thing as the job search requirement? I thought credit weeks were something you had to do while collecting benefits...
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Jacob Lewis
•No, you're thinking of the work search requirement. Credit weeks are about your past work history to qualify for benefits in the first place. The work search requirement is what you do while collecting - logging job contacts each week.
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Yara Haddad
@Mia Rodriguez - Based on what you've described with working 25-30 hours at $15/hour, you should definitely have enough credit weeks! Those earnings would put you well over the $143 minimum threshold. The key thing is making sure those wages were reported correctly by your employers to NYS. If you're still unsure about your exact count, you might also try visiting a local Department of Labor career center - sometimes the in-person staff can pull up more detailed information than what's available online. They're usually less busy than the phone lines too.
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