What is base year for unemployment benefits - NYS Department of Labor calculation confused me
I'm trying to figure out my unemployment benefit amount and the NYS Department of Labor paperwork keeps mentioning 'base year' but I have no idea what that means. My claim was approved but the benefit calculation doesn't make sense to me. I worked different jobs over the past year and a half - some part-time, some full-time. How do they decide which earnings count? Is it just the last 12 months or something different? The my.ny.gov portal shows my base year but doesn't explain how they picked those specific quarters.
10 comments
Join the conversation
Malik Thompson
The base year is the first four quarters of the five quarters before you filed your claim. So if you filed in January 2025, your base year would be October 2023 through September 2024. NYS Department of Labor uses your highest quarter of earnings in that base year to determine your weekly benefit amount. The quarters they use are based on when wages were actually paid to you, not when you worked.
0 coins
Emma Anderson
•That makes more sense! So if I had higher earnings in early 2024 but filed my claim in December, those earnings would still count?
0 coins
Isabella Ferreira
yeah its basically your best earning quarter from like a year ago, not recent stuff which is annoying if you got promoted recently
0 coins
CosmicVoyager
You can also use an alternate base year if your regular base year doesn't qualify you or gives you a low benefit amount. The alternate base year uses the last four completed quarters before you filed. You have to specifically request this when filing though - NYS Department of Labor doesn't automatically check it for you.
0 coins
Ravi Kapoor
•How do you request the alternate base year? Is there a form or do you have to call them? I think my recent job paid way more than what I was making a year ago.
0 coins
CosmicVoyager
•You can request it during the initial filing process online, or call NYS Department of Labor to have them recalculate. If you're having trouble getting through on the phone, I used a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that got me connected to an agent in about 10 minutes. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI showing how it works.
0 coins
Freya Nielsen
The whole base year thing is so confusing! I worked three different jobs last year and some paid weekly, some bi-weekly, some monthly. NYS Department of Labor calculated everything but I'm not sure they got all my wages right. Should I be worried about this?
0 coins
Malik Thompson
•You should definitely verify your wage history is accurate. Log into my.ny.gov and check the quarterly wage information they have on file. If anything is missing or incorrect, you'll need to contact your employers to submit corrected wage reports to NYS Department of Labor.
0 coins
Omar Mahmoud
I remember being so confused about this when I first filed. The key thing to understand is that they're looking at completed quarters only, so if you filed mid-quarter, that current quarter doesn't count toward your base year calculation. It's all about the timing of when wages were reported by your employers.
0 coins
Ava Rodriguez
The base year system can definitely be tricky at first! One thing that helped me understand it was realizing that NYS Department of Labor is essentially looking back at your earnings from about 15-18 months ago when you file. So your most recent work history might not even be considered, which seems counterintuitive. If you're still confused about your specific calculation, you can request a detailed breakdown of how they calculated your weekly benefit amount - they'll show you exactly which quarters and wages they used. This helped me catch an error where one of my employers hadn't reported my wages correctly to the state.
0 coins