Can you work part time and still get unemployment in Texas TWC?

This is the part I wish someone had explained to me when my hours got cut last year. I kept thinking any earnings would just zero out my payment and I went weeks without requesting because I figured why bother. Lost those weeks completely.

So to make sure I understand, if my weekly benefit amount is say $380, the cushion is 25% of $380 which is $95. So I can earn up to $95 and my payment stays at $380. If I earn $150 that week, they subtract the $50 that's over the $95 from my $380 payment and I'd get $330. Does that math work?

That math is exactly right. The overage above the 25% threshold comes straight off your payment dollar for dollar.

wait so if you earn like way more than your benefit amount in a week from part time you just get zero that week and it doesn't like ruin your whole claim right? you can still request the next week?

Correct, one week with zero payment doesn't end anything. You just get nothing that specific week and pick back up the next payment request cycle.

My situation is similar, got cut to part time at a restaurant and I've been dreading calling TWC. Might try that service to get my specific numbers sorted out with an agent.

The per week thing is key and I'm glad an agent confirmed it. I was worried that a high earnings week would somehow average into my other weeks and kill my partial benefits across the board.

I did get that letter and I've been doing my activities, but I'll be honest I didn't realize the requirement stayed in place while I was still working some hours. I assumed partial employment meant I was exempt. Glad I kept doing them.

Keeping a log of every work search activity is something I cannot stress enough. TWC can ask to see it at literally any point and if you can't produce it you're in trouble. Date, employer, method, outcome. Write it all down.

the work search thing caught me off guard too. i thought since i was still technically employed i was done with all that. found out the hard way when TWC sent me a letter asking about my activities for a specific week

Registered on WorkInTexas.com when I first applied so that part is handled. Didn't realize the login was shared with UBS though, that would have confused me.

The shared login thing is genuinely confusing. I kept trying to make separate accounts and locking myself out.

I drive for a rideshare a couple nights a week on top of my part time job. So I'd need to add both together and report the combined total for each week?

Yes, every income source that week gets added up and reported as one total. The same 25% cushion applies to the combined amount.

That changes my math quite a bit. I was only reporting the warehouse hours and completely forgot about the rideshare nights. Need to go back and look at my recent payment requests.

If you underreported earnings you should contact TWC to sort it out before they catch it. Fixing it yourself is a much better situation than having them find it.

Okay this actually helps a lot. I was rounding my hourly rate times hours worked to get an earnings number and hoping it was right. I should really just be using my gross from my pay stub for the week the work was done, not the week I got paid.

Exactly, pay stub is the simplest way to verify the gross for that work week as long as you're clear on which days those hours fell.

I made the mistake of reporting the amount on my direct deposit instead of the gross on my stub and ended up underreporting by like $40 each week because taxes were already taken out. Direct deposit shows net, not gross.

This is an important clarification. Some people interpret the threshold as meaning small earnings are invisible to TWC. They're not, you just report them and they don't reduce your payment if they're under 25% of your weekly amount.

yeah i think some people confuse no reduction with no reporting. very different things.

Your coworker has half the picture. The waiting week does require two payments' worth of benefits to have been paid out, but that alone doesn't release it. You also need to either be back at full time work or have exhausted all your benefits. And you have to actually request it, it doesn't release on its own. In UBS there's an option called Request Your Waiting Week, or you can do it through Tele-Serv.

So two payments plus one of those two conditions plus an actual request from me. Got it. I haven't gone back to full time so I guess mine just sits there for now.

Right. If you never go back to full time it releases when you exhaust benefits, but you still have to request it at that point. It's not lost forever, just waiting on those conditions.

Benefits in Texas can run up to 26 weeks worth of your weekly amount, or 27% of your total base period wages, whichever comes out lower. So yes it can stretch for a while especially if partial weeks mean you're burning through it slower.

That's a good point, partial weeks where you still get some benefit probably extend how long your claim lasts compared to collecting full weeks of benefits straight through.

I never thought about it that way. Partial employment might actually make your claim last longer than a full stop would. That's kind of a silver lining for people whose hours got slashed instead of eliminated entirely.

This happened to me exactly twice since I started. A coworker called out and I picked up their shift and my earnings jumped past what I had anticipated. I did call TWC both times to update it. The agent was pretty matter of fact about it.

Calling proactively like that is exactly the right move. It shows good faith and prevents an overpayment from quietly building up over time.

TWC mails an overpayment notice when it finds discrepancies and trust me you do not want that surprise. And when it does issue one it has to collect it no matter what, there's no hardship exception or way to get it forgiven. Much better to just report accurately from the start.

Two part time jobs simultaneously is something a lot of people don't realize is compatible with still collecting. As long as combined earnings don't blow past the threshold you can still get a partial payment.

Yeah and I had to register both employers in my work history when I applied, which I initially forgot to do for the second one. Had to call back and update that.

Accepting additional hours from an existing employer generally doesn't count as a work search activity. Work search means reaching out to new potential employers. Working more at your current place is income to report but it doesn't check off a work search box. Keep doing separate job search activities.

That's what I figured but I wanted to confirm. So I still need to do my full five activities even on weeks I pick up extra shifts. Good to know before I skipped any.

And document every activity with the date, company, how you applied or made contact, and what happened. If TWC audits a specific week and you don't have records for it, the assumption is not favorable to you.

Adjudication and an appeal are two totally different stages. Adjudication is when TWC is still deciding. An appeal is what you file after they issue a determination you disagree with. Some people mix those up and think they need to appeal when they're really just waiting on adjudication.

I definitely confused those two terms at first. I thought I needed to file an appeal immediately when I saw adjudication on my account and an advisor had to explain that I was still in the initial decision phase.

That distinction matters a lot timing-wise too. Appeals have a 14-day deadline from when the determination letter is mailed. If you think you're still in adjudication when you've actually gotten a determination, you could miss your window.

Bonuses are something I hadn't even thought about. Good to know you can reach an agent to clarify specific income types before you submit a payment request with unusual entries.

The agent was clear that it goes in the same earnings field for that week, combined with regular wages. The source doesn't matter for how you report it, just the gross total for the week.

This is a super common confusion and it matters because a week where you earned over the cutoff and get zero is different from a week where you earned under it. They need to be separate entries to calculate correctly.

I did exactly this when I first started. Averaged my two weeks together and entered one number. It made my partial benefits come out weirdly low for a while before I figured out what I was doing wrong.

Yep, week by week, Sunday to Saturday, gross for each. Once I got that down the whole thing made a lot more sense.

This is a really important point. Someone who worked full time for two years and just had their hours cut recently would have a weekly benefit amount based on their full time wages even though they're currently earning less. The base period looks backward.

Right, the base period for a claim filed now is roughly July 2025 through June 2026, so if you were full time during most of that you're in decent shape benefit-amount wise.

My hours got cut in October 2026 so my entire base period was at full time pay. I was surprised my weekly amount was as high as it was given that I'm only working part time right now.

This is a category where guessing is a bad idea. If you got any kind of payout from your employer when things changed, call TWC or report it and let them make the determination rather than deciding on your own whether it counts.

My employer didn't offer any severance when they cut my hours, they just handed me a new schedule. So that one doesn't apply to me but good to flag for anyone who got a package when their role changed.

Wow I had no idea there was an 8-week threshold and then a different standard after that. I assumed the standard was fixed for the whole claim.

The 90% then 75% rule is baked into how TWC assesses whether you refused suitable work. Refusing a reasonable offer can disqualify you so it's not a decision to make casually.

does that mean if someone offered me a full time job at like 85% of my old pay in week 3 i technically have to take it or risk disqualification

In the first eight weeks you'd need to have a genuinely good reason to decline something at 90% of your prior wage. At 85% of prior pay in week three that could be considered suitable work by TWC. Definitely not a decision to make without understanding the risk.

Employer reporting discrepancies are scary because you might not even know there's a mismatch until benefits stop. Good reminder to keep your own records of hours and earnings separately from just trusting your employer's records.

She kept her pay stubs which made the whole conversation with the agent much faster. The agent could see both sets of numbers and figure out where the difference came from.

A full time job ends your eligibility starting on the day that job begins. You'd stop requesting payments at that point since you'd be earning more than your weekly benefit amount plus the 25% cushion. You don't file paperwork to close a claim, you just stop requesting. If you get cut again later you can open a new claim.

got it so no formal closing process, the claim just sits there unused if i don't request anymore. and if i get cut again i start fresh with a new claim

One thing worth knowing: if you're within your original benefit year you might be able to reopen the same claim rather than starting completely fresh depending on timing. Worth calling TWC if that situation comes up rather than just assuming you need a brand new application.

The benefit year runs 52 weeks from the Sunday of the week you first applied. Inside that window reopening versus new claim is a real distinction with different base period implications. Don't just assume.