Does unemployment know when you get a job? Texas TWC explained

Appreciate this, I've been dreading the phone wait. Going to look into it tonight because I really need to talk to someone at TWC directly about which exact weeks I need to fix.

My sister used that service when she had a question about her payment requests and said it saved her like a full afternoon. She had an adjudication issue going on at the same time and needed to get the specifics straight.

My situation is similar to the original post, wondering if I can use it to ask about correcting past payment requests or if that's something I'd have to do in writing.

Twenty days is not much time then. My start date was about three weeks ago so it's possible they already have that info. Does that automatically trigger something on my claim or does someone have to manually review it?

The new hire report going in doesn't automatically send you a fraud notice or anything like that. What typically happens is it creates a discrepancy if you requested payment for weeks after your start date without reporting earnings, and then TWC reviews it.

Confirmed this is accurate. The discrepancy between reported earnings (zero) and what the new hire database shows is what prompts a review, not the hire report alone.

I checked UBS and my most recent payment request is from about ten days ago. I reported zero earnings for the weeks I was already working. So that's the problem right there. I don't see an option to edit it.

Once you're past the amendment window in UBS you can't fix it online yourself. That's exactly when you have to call the Tele-Center at 800-939-6631 and have them note the correction on your account before a determination goes out.

Calling is the right answer here. Having it on record that you proactively reported it matters a lot compared to them finding it on their own.

That part about Sunday to Saturday is helpful, I hadn't thought about how to split it across weeks. My first pay period crossed two TWC claim weeks so I'd need to report a portion to each one.

Yep, TWC is strict about that Sunday to Saturday rule. Report the gross wages for whatever days fell in each of those calendar weeks, don't just dump the whole paycheck into one week.

Also worth knowing: you can still receive a partial benefit payment on weeks where you earned less than your weekly benefit amount plus 25 percent of it. So reporting earnings doesn't necessarily mean you get zero for those weeks, depending on what your weekly amount is.

So the difference between a regular overpayment and a fraud finding is whether it was intentional? My situation was genuinely a mistake but I know that probably sounds like what everyone says.

Calling them before they contact you is the clearest way to demonstrate it wasn't willful. Document when you made the call, who you spoke with if they give a name, and what was said. That record matters if it goes to review.

This is the most important thing in this whole thread. Getting ahead of it voluntarily looks very different than being caught by the crosscheck.

A full-time job ends your eligibility starting on the first day you work it. You don't keep submitting payment requests for weeks after that start date, and if you do submit one for a week you worked full time, you're required to report those earnings. Continuing to request payments and reporting zero when you're working full time is exactly what creates the fraud issue.

Okay that makes sense. She was confused because she still had weeks left in her benefit year and thought she had to claim them or lose them.

The benefit year expiring is a separate thing from stopping payment requests. Once you go back to full-time work the eligibility ends for those weeks regardless of how many weeks are left in the benefit year.

That's true that compliance varies, but you really can't gamble on that. If the report comes in late and there's already a discrepancy on your claim, you're in a worse position than if you'd already corrected it yourself. Betting on your employer dropping the ball is not a strategy.

Fair point, not recommending anyone rely on that, just saying the 20-day thing isn't always airtight in practice.

Gross is correct, before any deductions. Whatever your hourly rate times hours worked, or your salary prorated for the days in that TWC week. Don't round up, round down to whole dollars.

Got it, gross and round down. And I need to report it in the week I worked, not the week I get the paycheck. I keep forgetting that part.

And even side work counts. Freelance, gig apps, anything where money changes hands for labor. A lot of people forget to report Uber or DoorDash income and that creates problems later.

This is accurate. The requirement runs until you're actually working, not until you sign an offer letter. TWC mails each claimant a letter saying specifically how many activities their county requires each week, and that number is what governs.

She didn't realize the requirement could vary by county either. She was used to the number from when she'd been on a claim before in a different county and assumed it was the same everywhere.

Harris, Dallas, Bexar, Tarrant and Travis counties all require five activities a week. Other counties can be as low as one. The letter TWC sends after you apply is the definitive answer for your specific situation.

Your former employer doesn't get notified when you start a new job. The new hire report goes to the state, not to your former employer. The former employer's role in your claim mostly ends after the initial separation determination unless there's an appeal.

That's what I figured but wasn't sure. I worried my old company might report something out of spite since the layoff was messy.

Can you explain the partial benefit threshold? I hadn't considered that maybe some weeks weren't fully cut off even with my new job wages.

Your weekly benefit amount plus 25 percent of it is the cutoff. Earn less than that combined number and you still get some benefit for that week, just reduced. So if your first week you only worked three days and your earnings were below that threshold, you might not owe back the full payment for that week. But you'd need to run the numbers on your specific weekly benefit amount.

This is a good point. The overpayment could be significantly smaller than a worst-case read of three weeks of full benefits. Still need to report and correct it, but the total might be more manageable.

That's not accurate. Beyond the new hire report, employers file quarterly wage reports with TWC that include every employee's earnings. Those get matched against claim records. It's not an instant process but it does happen, and when the match runs, discrepancies get flagged. Assuming TWC won't find out because you didn't tell them is a mistake.

Yeah I figured that was wrong, the person seemed very confident about it though. Good to have it confirmed here.

The quarterly wage report match is exactly why a lot of overpayment notices come out months after the fact. People think they got away with something and then get a letter six months later.

How stressful was the appeal process overall? I may be looking at something similar and I'm trying to mentally prepare.

Honestly less scary than I expected. The hearing is by phone, one officer, and you just walk through what happened week by week with documentation. I had my pay stubs and my work schedule, which helped a lot. Keep your payment requests coming in on schedule the whole time you're appealing, because TWC won't pay any weeks you missed while waiting for a decision.

The keeping-up-with-payment-requests-during-an-appeal thing trips so many people up. If you stop submitting them because you think everything is frozen during the appeal, those weeks are gone.

This thread has been really helpful. I'm going to call TWC first thing tomorrow using the service mentioned earlier in the thread. I want to get this logged as a voluntary correction before any determination goes out.

That's the right call. When you get through, ask the agent specifically to note in your file that you are proactively reporting a discrepancy and want to correct your payment requests. Get a confirmation number for the call if they offer one.

Coming back to update when you know more would help others reading this later.

It's good to hear it works as intended when you use it correctly. I think people assume reporting earnings always means losing the whole benefit check, so they avoid it.

Right, and that assumption causes more harm than the reporting ever would. Partial benefits are real, they're not tiny either if your earnings are low enough relative to your weekly amount.

I did submit work search activities for one week after I started, I hadn't even thought about that aspect. I completed those activities before my start date that week so the log itself was accurate, but I need to make sure that's clear when I talk to TWC.

If the activities were genuinely done before your start date and fall in the correct Sunday-to-Saturday week, that's a defensible position. Keep records of those activity dates.

My payment request situation is probably fine but I'd feel better talking to someone directly too. Might try it this week.

Good to know it was useful for an overpayment question specifically, since that might end up being part of my conversation too.

That framing is useful. The act of correcting it proactively is itself evidence of intent, in the direction you want.

Exactly. The timeline of when you reported versus when they found it independently matters in how the determination gets written.

Good thread for anyone else who's panicking about a similar situation. The answer is basically: report it fast, don't wait.

They also collect through the federal Treasury Offset Program, which can intercept federal tax refunds. And the Texas Comptroller can hold back state payments like lottery winnings or unclaimed property. So the repayment does eventually happen one way or another.

The tax refund intercept is the one that surprises people. They think it's behind them and then their refund disappears in February.

Forty minutes total sounds way better than what I've been dealing with trying to call directly.

Setting this up tonight for my call tomorrow morning. I want to get this resolved before another payment request is due.