Who pays for your unemployment benefits when you're collecting in NY?
I've been collecting unemployment for about 6 weeks now and my neighbor keeps making comments about how I'm living off taxpayers. Is that actually true? I thought my old employer was paying into some kind of fund for this. I'm confused about where the money for my weekly benefits is actually coming from. Can someone explain how this works with the NYS Department of Labor system?
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Ravi Gupta
Your neighbor is being ignorant. Unemployment insurance is funded by payroll taxes that employers pay, not general taxpayers. Your employer has been paying unemployment insurance taxes to the state based on their payroll. The NYS Department of Labor administers the program but the funding comes from employer contributions to the unemployment insurance trust fund.
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StarStrider
•Thank you! That makes me feel better. So it's like insurance that my employer was paying for?
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Freya Pedersen
exactly what the above person said. employers pay state unemployment tax (SUTA) and federal unemployment tax (FUTA) on every employee. its literally insurance they pay for in case they have to lay people off
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Omar Hassan
The way it works is employers pay different tax rates based on their history of layoffs too. Companies that lay off more people pay higher unemployment insurance rates. It's designed to discourage unnecessary layoffs while providing a safety net for workers. The NYS Department of Labor sets these rates annually based on the employer's experience rating.
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Chloe Anderson
•That's interesting, I didn't know the rates varied by company. Does that mean my old job will have to pay more now because they laid me off?
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Omar Hassan
•Not immediately, but if they have a pattern of layoffs over several years, yes their rate will increase. It's calculated over a multi-year period.
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Diego Vargas
Your neighbor sounds like one of those people who thinks everyone on unemployment is lazy. Don't listen to them. You worked for those benefits and your employer paid for that insurance coverage!
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CosmicCruiser
If you're having trouble explaining this to people or need to contact the NYS Department of Labor for any reason, I found a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that helps you actually get through to agents when the phone lines are constantly busy. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI that shows how it works. Really helpful when you need to talk to someone about your claim details.
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Anastasia Fedorov
•How much does something like that cost? The phone lines are definitely impossible to get through on.
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CosmicCruiser
•I'd rather pay a small fee than waste hours trying to get through myself. The time saved was worth it for me when I had questions about my weekly claim certification.
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Freya Pedersen
just tell your neighbor that unemployment insurance is no different than workers comp or disability insurance - its all paid for by employers as part of doing business
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