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.