What is your unemployment pay based on - NYS Department of Labor calculation confusion
I just got approved for unemployment after being laid off from my restaurant job last month and I'm totally confused about how they calculated my weekly benefit amount. I was expecting around $400 a week but I'm only getting $285. I worked at three different places over the past 18 months - two restaurants and briefly at a retail store. Does NYS Department of Labor look at all my jobs or just my most recent one? Also confused because my last job paid me $18/hour but I only worked there for 4 months. Before that I was making $15/hour at another restaurant for over a year. Can someone explain how this actually works?
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Carlos Mendoza
NYS Department of Labor uses your highest earning quarter from your base period to calculate your weekly benefit amount. Your base period is typically the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before you filed. So they're not just looking at your most recent job - they're looking at your earnings across all employers during that time frame. Your weekly benefit is roughly half of what you earned in your highest quarter divided by 13 weeks.
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Ingrid Larsson
•Ok that makes more sense! So if I made $8,000 in my best quarter, that would be around $307 per week? That's closer to what I'm getting.
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Zainab Mahmoud
yeah its confusing at first but they basically take your best 3 months of earnings and divide by 13 or something like that. i had the same thing happen where my recent job paid more but my benefit was based on when i was working two jobs at once last year
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Ava Williams
The calculation can be tricky when you've had multiple employers. NYS Department of Labor looks at your total wages from ALL employers during your base period quarters, not just one job. If you want to see exactly how they calculated it, you can log into your my.ny.gov account and look at your monetary determination letter. It should show your earnings for each quarter and explain the math.
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Raj Gupta
•I had trouble getting through to NYS Department of Labor when I had questions about my benefit calculation. Kept getting busy signals for weeks. Someone on here mentioned claimyr.com which actually helped me get through to speak with an agent who explained my whole calculation. There's a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI that shows how it works. Made the whole process way less stressful.
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Lena Müller
Just want to add that if you think there's an error in your wage calculation, you can request a hearing within 30 days. Sometimes employers don't report wages correctly or there are data entry errors. I had to do this when one of my previous jobs wasn't showing up in my wage record.
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Ingrid Larsson
•Good to know! I'll check my determination letter first to see if all my jobs are listed correctly.
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TechNinja
Wait so if I just started a really good paying job but only worked there 2 months before getting laid off, my unemployment would be based on my old crappy job from last year?? That seems unfair
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Carlos Mendoza
•Unfortunately yes, that's how the system works. It's designed to reflect your established earning pattern rather than just your most recent wages. There are some exceptions for certain situations but generally the base period calculation stands.
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Avery Flores
I went through this same confusion when I first applied! What really helped me understand it was looking at my wage transcript on the NYS DOL website. They break down each quarter and show exactly which employers reported what wages. In your case with the restaurant jobs, if you were working multiple places during the same quarters, those wages all get added together for that period. So even though your most recent job paid more per hour, if your highest total quarterly earnings were from when you were working at the $15/hour place (maybe working more hours or overtime), that would be what determines your benefit amount. The system is definitely not intuitive but once you see the actual numbers it makes more sense.
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