ESD weekly claim reporting: Round up or down for partial hours?
I'm filling out my weekly claim and worked 13.2 hours last week. Does ESD want me to report 13 hours or 14 hours? The system only takes whole numbers and I don't want to mess up my claim by reporting the wrong hours. Do you round up or down? This is my first partial week working since I started claiming benefits and I'm worried about getting an overpayment notice if I do it wrong.
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Noah Torres
You should always round to the nearest hour when filing your ESD weekly claim. Since 13.2 is closer to 13 than 14, you'd report 13 hours. If it was 13.5 or higher, you'd round up to 14. I made this mistake once and reported the exact hours on my timesheet without rounding - ended up with a confusing phone call from ESD asking why my employer's report didn't match mine.
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Natalie Wang
•Thank you! That makes sense. I was overthinking it.
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Samantha Hall
NO, this is WRONG!!! You need to report the EXACT hours you worked to ESD!!! They specifically told me when I called that even if the system only takes whole numbers, you should round UP, not down, or you could get hit with an overpayment notice later! The ESD system is totally broken but they still expect US to get everything perfect somehow!
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Ryan Young
•wait what? the online form only takes whole numbers tho? how r u supposed to put in exact if it only takes whole #s??
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Sophia Clark
Having gone through this same confusion last year, I can confirm that ESD's official policy is to round to the nearest hour. So 13.2 hours = 13 hours on your weekly claim. If it's 13.5 or higher, round up to 14. The key is consistency - use the same rounding method each week. This is actually in the ESD handbook (page 12) if you want to double-check.
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Samantha Hall
•That's NOT what they told me on the phone! The system is so broken!!!
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Katherine Harris
I've been on unemployment for about 6 months now and have had partial hours almost every week. I've always rounded to the nearest hour (up if .5 or more, down if less than .5) and haven't had any issues with my claims. Just be consistent with how you report each week. If your employer reports your hours differently than you do, that's when problems can happen.
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Madison Allen
•This is right. I've been on and off UI for years and always round to nearest. Never had an issue.
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Joshua Wood
If you're still worried about it, try calling ESD directly to confirm. I know it's basically impossible to get through to them these days with their phone lines constantly busy. I found a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that got me connected to an ESD agent in about 20 minutes after trying for days on my own. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/7DieNd3C7zQ?si=26TzE_zGms-DODN3 that shows how it works. The agent I spoke with cleared up several questions I had about reporting hours. Definitely worth it for peace of mind.
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Natalie Wang
•Thank you for the tip! I'll check it out if I have more questions. For now, it sounds like rounding to the nearest hour (13 in my case) is the way to go.
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Ryan Young
my friend got an overpayment notice bc her boss reported diff hours than she did its such a mess!! make sure ur tracking exactly what u work so u can prove it if they come after u later
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Sophia Clark
•This is an excellent point. Always keep your own records of exactly when you worked, including screenshots of your timesheet or clock-in/out times. ESD sometimes cross-references with employer reports months later.
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