What happens if you work and collect unemployment benefits in NY?
I started a part-time gig last week while still receiving my unemployment benefits and I'm honestly confused about what I'm supposed to do. I've been getting my weekly payments for about 6 weeks now and this job is only 15 hours a week at $18/hour. Do I need to report this work? What happens if you work and collect unemployment at the same time? I don't want to mess up my claim but I also can't afford to lose the UI payments right now. My benefit amount is $504 per week so this part-time work would only bring in around $270 weekly before taxes. Can I keep both or will NYS Department of Labor cut off my benefits completely?
12 comments
Join the conversation
Zoe Dimitriou
You absolutely MUST report any work income when you file your weekly claim. NYS Department of Labor has specific rules about working while collecting unemployment. For your situation, they'll reduce your benefit amount based on what you earn, but you won't lose everything. The formula is roughly: if you earn less than your weekly benefit rate, they deduct 25% of your earnings from your UI payment. So if you earn $270, they'd deduct about $67 from your $504 benefit, leaving you with around $437 plus your work income.
0 coins
Andre Lefebvre
•Thank you! That actually sounds better than I expected. Do I report this on my weekly certification or somewhere else on the NYS Department of Labor website?
0 coins
QuantumQuest
BE CAREFUL! If you don't report work income when you certify each week, that's considered unemployment fraud. NYS Department of Labor can and will find out through wage records and you'll have to pay back everything plus penalties. I've seen people get hit with overpayment notices for thousands of dollars because they thought they could just not mention part-time work.
0 coins
Jamal Anderson
•This is so true. My cousin got an overpayment notice for $4,200 last year because she didn't report her weekend catering job. Now she's paying it back $50 per week out of her current benefits.
0 coins
Mei Zhang
wait so if I work more than my benefit amount do I lose everything?? I might get offered a temp job that pays like $600 a week but its only for a month. would that mess up my whole claim with NYS Department of Labor?
0 coins
Zoe Dimitriou
•If you earn more than your weekly benefit rate plus $50, you won't receive any UI payment for that week. But your claim stays active - you just resume collecting when the temp job ends. You still need to file your weekly certification and report the work though.
0 coins
Liam McGuire
The NYS Department of Labor system is impossible to navigate for this stuff. I've been trying to call them for two weeks to ask about reporting freelance income and can never get through. The phone just rings and rings or tells me call volume is too high. Has anyone found a way to actually talk to someone there?
0 coins
Amara Eze
•I had the same problem until someone told me about Claimyr - it's a service that calls NYS Department of Labor for you and gets you connected to an actual agent. I used it at claimyr.com and got through in like 20 minutes instead of spending hours trying myself. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI that shows how it works. Saved me so much frustration.
0 coins
Liam McGuire
•Interesting, I might have to try that. This whole process is just so stressful when you can't get answers about something as basic as reporting work income.
0 coins
Giovanni Ricci
Just report everything honestly when you do your weekly claim. The online system will calculate your reduced benefit automatically once you enter your work hours and gross pay. It's actually pretty straightforward once you get used to it.
0 coins
Paolo Bianchi
@Andre Lefebvre - You're smart to ask about this upfront! I went through the exact same situation a few months ago. When you do your weekly certification on the NYS Department of Labor website, there's a specific section where they ask if you worked and how much you earned. Just enter your gross earnings for that week (before taxes). The system automatically calculates your reduced benefit. In your case with $270 weekly earnings, you'll still get a decent portion of your $504 benefit. The key is being consistent about reporting it every single week - don't skip even one week thinking "it's just part-time." That's where people get into trouble with overpayments later.
0 coins
Zoe Papanikolaou
•@Paolo Bianchi This is really helpful advice! I m'in a similar boat - just started collecting UI and wondering about taking on some freelance work. When you say gross "earnings do" they mean before all deductions or just before taxes? Like if I do some contract work and have to pay for my own supplies/materials, can I deduct those costs or do I report the full amount the client pays me?
0 coins