Hope to be had

Let’s face it, folks who just lost their job usually feel a little hopeless. Wouldn’t you? Oh wait, my general audience actually did lose a main source of employment, so chin up everyone, there is hope.

No, I am not talking about President Obama’s stimulus package (though some of you will be getting a puny addition to each week). Any relief from the White house will be further down the road, and by then, it might be too late for some of you.

So, did you know there are many retraining programs that already exist at your Job Service office? Many of them will help pay for your college tuition. You can still get your unemployment check while going to school under this program as well.

Are you tired of working for the Big Guy and want to be your own boss? Help can be available for those seeking to strike it on their own. But be careful. You could lose benefits should you say you are already deep in your own business adventure as they would assume that you are not looking for work or you are working for fulltime for yourself.

Browse the state’s website. Call and ask for more information. Each state is different and see what they have waiting for you.

Let me hear it...

Many comedians have cracked a joke or two about government bureaucrats and their incompetency. So let’s have it. I want to know your craziest stories dealing with your local unemployment office. Whether it is the weirdest unrelated response to a question of yours, or the most frustrating experience trying to find out what is wrong with your claim it's bound to educate the rest of us regarding the brain size of our government employees...

I will be publishing some of your stories in the coming weeks. Be looking for some comedy to lighten your day.

Latest Unemployment Figures

The U.S. unemployment rate hit a 25-year high of 8.1 percent last month as employers buckling under the strain of a severe recession axed 651,000 jobs, government data showed on Friday. Read full article here

With so many new claimants filing for unemployment, you definately want a smooth path to receiving your weekly checks. Any small bump in the road can delay your claim for weeks, and most delays are small errors that are easily fixed.

Lastly, with those figures, we all could use a little humor....

Acronyms and Airport Codes

In a previous post I equated acronyms used by unemployment offices to airport codes. When fielding questions from all of you, I realized this is a more severe problem than I had realized.

So this blog post will be an attempt to decode the more common acronyms used for the average claimant and corresponding airports.

WBA: Weekly Benefit Amount. How much you will get if approved, before taxes. OR you may be flying to Wahia, Australia.
MBA: Maximum Benefit Amount, The maximum amount of benefits which a person may receive during a benefit year. Or how about a trip to Moi, Kenya?
BYE: Benefit Year Expiration or Ending date. This is usually in a XX/XX format. The first number is the week in which you filed and the next is the year it expires. For example if your BYE was 02/10, that means your claim was filed in the second week of the year and expires next year in 2010. Should this date come and you are still unemployed, explore options to file a new claim. Flying to Beidah, Yemen instead?
DUA: Disaster Unemployment, a program for the payment of unemployment assistance to unemployed individuals whose unemployment is the direct result of a major disaster as declared by the President of the United States. Or Eaker, Puerto Rico sounds nice in the winter, doesn't it?
EUC: Emergency Unemployment Compensation, also known simply as an extension (but that is too simple for the bureaucrats to say). Or fly to Eucla, Australia, ahh the sun is calling
CWC: Combined-Wage Claim, a claim filed in one state against wage credits in two or more states. Make sure you are given options to which state to file against, and pick the highest paying state. Lastly, a trip to Chernovtsy, Ukraine at this time of year, not so warm.

And a few others I thought were necessary, (even if they don't have Aiport Codes to go with them):


UI: Shortened version of Unemployment Insurance.
BP: Base Period or The first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before the beginning of your claim. Clear as mud, right?
BW: Benefit Week, a calendar week which starts at 12:01 am Sunday and ends 12:00 midnight the following Saturday.
UCFE: Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees, which is the benefit program for former federal employees. (Redundant information? Yeah, I know. Some Federal Employees need redundancy for understanding)
UCX: Unemployment Compensation for Former Military Personnel, and just where does the X come from in that acronym?
IC: Interstate Claim, a claim filed after you have moved to a new state against the state where you had earned wages.

Having this list handy, while speaking on the phone with a representative, would be ideal. It’s the only way you will be able to translate from government-ese to common English.

And if I slip up and use one of these during our conversation, please excuse me, old habits die hard, especially as I deprogram from civil service robot to human.

The Useless Waiting Week

I would say that the average citizen doesn’t understand the Waiting Week. The number one call we received was about this crazy idea that a congressman had way back when. The idea was that it would save the government money since most employees were laid off for only one week out of the year and should be able to survive without compensation for that week. Little did he know that denying the rights of citizens to receive this particular week’s compensation would, in fact, cost the state governments large amounts of money due to the staff time it takes to field questions, etc. Later I will blog about an odd experience I had with helping others understand the waiting week, but I digress….

So what is the waiting week? It is your first week of being unemployed. If you lose your employment on a Friday, you obviously should wait to file until the next week as you have worked a full week and made more money than allowed. But what if you find yourself without a job on Tuesday, can you file then? Yes, it’s possible to work a partial week and still have that count towards your waiting week. Cool huh? But please don’t delay in filing thinking you had to wait a week before even submitting a claim. You then basically lost out on that first week. It’s possible to backdate your claim to start the previous week, but that gets messy and with staff overworked now, it would be very difficult to get approved.

And just because you file your claim that first week, doesn’t mean you are finished. You still have to make a reporting of your activities for the week. Depending on your state, this can be done by phone, email or on the state’s website. If you don’t claim this waiting week, then that puts a stop on your claim and can hold up your benefits. And nobody wants that to happen….

Breaking news for Hoosier (that’s folks from Indiana), New Yorker, Hawaiian Claimants :

Beginning Sunday, 2/22/09: Eligible claimants will begin accruing a $25 weekly benefit increase when they file their weekly unemployment voucher. The increased benefits will be paid with a $25 deposit on the debit card for eligible claimants beginning Monday, 3/2/09 and then $25 weekly thereafter. This temporary $25 weekly increase is part of the just enacted Economic Stimulus Legislation. This increased benefit amount will apply to all eligible claimants collecting state or federal unemployment benefits

A few more states are jumping on, so check with your state and see if your Governor is accepting the Economic Stimulus Legislation. So, spend that $25 wisely.

I am sure you are feeling stimulated now…

Hi Ho... Hi Ho...

So how many of us feel a little dopey when we start the process of collecting unemployment insurance? Usually the first step I take to educate myself on any topic is a good ‘ol google search. A simple search revealed the state’s website I was looking for. One click and there we have it, all the information I could ask for. The only problem was the overwhelming list of accroynms and legalese produced from some socially incompetent civil servant sitting behind a desk. Things like DUA, SEA and TRA, made me feel like I was looking at the FAA website listing of airport codes instead!

As time marches forward, I hope to have blog postings giving tips and tricks on claiming Unemployment. In the meantime, my email is always open. Someone has to help the average citizen; I’m only doing my small part.