Eligibility For UIC, EB & EUC

Lowprofile wrote:Great forum for up to date information on unemployment question. I have been unemployed here in Florida since April 2009. I recently exhausted my Teir III weeks (last check being claimed on 9/6/2010) and on the check stub says that I have exhausted Tier III benefits and will recieve a new letter of eligibility in the mail. Today is 10/6/2010 and no letter and still 0 balance on my claim form. I was under the impression that you automatically rolled over into Tier IV after finishing Tier III. Its been a month now since my Tier III benefits ended and am wondering if there is something I missed or am supposed to do. Did anything change on Tier IV eligibility or is this just a waiting game while AWI establishes my new Tier? Will I recieve weeks retro-active for this down time? Anybody else have trouble going into Tier IV? Thanks so much for the help of this forum.

Regards

Have you tried contacting the AWI office asking about tier IV? I went to tier IV at the beginning of the year, and I do remember it took some time, I had to call to get the ball rolling

I have tried to call the 800 number they direct yopu to on the web site (1-800-204-2418) and have NEVER once had it go to an operator or even put me on hold. It says all of the reps are busy and hangs up. Anybody else have any problems getting into Tier IV in Florida? Is there another telephone number that actually connects you to a live person?

Lowprofile wrote:I have tried to call the 800 number they direct yopu to on the web site (1-800-204-2418) and have NEVER once had it go to an operator or even put me on hold. It says all of the reps are busy and hangs up. Anybody else have any problems getting into Tier IV in Florida? Is there another telephone number that actually connects you to a live person?

I'm no longer getting benefits right now, but this is news to me that people are having trouble rolling over into Tier !V at a time when there should be no lag time for implementation of new legislation. It must be some individual hiccup in your case or in their computers. There really should have been no break at all at this point.

Go into the thread here on our first page for AWI contacts and read through the last few pages to find our other suggested contacts, including my suggestion to call the governor's office to complain that you must speak to someone and can't get through.

The 800 number most often gets you to the call centers, where they don't know as much, even sometimes giving out misleading information. You need to speak with one of the regular staff in Tallahassee. My usual favorite is Melody, but there are others. You may have some kind of flag on your account for whatever reason or error that needs a simple phonecall to the right person to remedy.

And yes, once you get it straightened out and get benefits again, they will be back-dated to where you left off, assuming you had no income in between times.

Just thought I'd post this here. It's not new, but I just noticed this on NELP's new site. Even though I read the new law that had this "fix," it still seemed a bit confusing as to how the states would implement it. While the law still has some variation in how each state implements it, everyone on benefits or who might go back to benefits should be aware of this important change in the law, and NELP does a good job of explaining it:

http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2010/Final%20EUC%20Fix%20QA.pdf

Essentially, the new law has tried to prevent the nonsense that many went through in the past couple of years when they did the right thing and got temp work, then got put on a new benefit year at some ridiculously low new rate. The new law (the same law that gave the last deadline extension) limits the amount of that reduction, so hopefully so many people won't be discouraged from taking part-time or temp work.

I try to make sense of this whole unemployment thing, but even with a college degree I still struggle. I finish my current tier on 11/27/2010 and advance to tier III. The AWI website says - November 28, 2010 - Under current federal law, whichever tier EUC customers are in as of November 28, 2010 will be the final tier for which they will qualify. While EUC customers will be allowed to complete their current tier, they will not be able to advance to the next tier. So, does that mean that when I am finished with the next tier I will not advance to another? Please forgive me if this has been covered before, I have been trying to follow along as best I can.

Maggi

hart2heart2009 wrote:...So, does that mean that when I am finished with the next tier I will not advance to another? Please forgive me if this has been covered before, I have been trying to follow along as best I can.

Maggi

Depends on whether Congress decides to extend those deadlines any further out than Dec 4 (the end of that week). That's what all the brouhaha is about lately, what's going to happen (if anything) in this upcoming lame duck session.

The state agencies can only tell people what to expect under current law, and current law cuts off eligibility at the end of November, and it also cuts off benefits entirely for anyone still getting Florida's EB benefits.

So if Congress does act on this, you'll have to count out when your new tier ends, and if you will meet any new eligibility deadlines for any new legislation.

Isn't this fun? Stay tuned!

Marcia Pounds - Sun Sentinel

Q: If my employer files for bankruptcy, can I file for unemployment benefits? What if I want to start a business?

A: Yes, as long as your employer paid into the state unemployment insurance trust fund for you and other employees, you can file for unemployment benefits -- even if the company files for bankruptcy.

You also say you're thinking about starting a business to prepare for when your employment ends. When you accept unemployment benefits, you're expected to look for a job. But many individuals do consulting or other work on the side while they are searching for a permanent job or planning to start a business.

income you make from your side venture must be reported to the unemployment office when you claim your weeks; the income will be deducted from your weekly benefit using a formula that rewards you for the effort.

However, some people find they're making more money than their weekly benefit, which is a maximum of $275 a week in Florida, and stop claiming weeks.

Before you launch your business, make sure you have enough savings to keep the business going and support yourself for as long as three to five years. It often takes five years for a new business to record a profit. Go for help at your local small business development center to draw up a solid business plan.

In South Florida, you can find small business development centers at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth and Florida Atlantic University, at the Fort Lauderdale location.

Tuesday, Jan. 4 2011

I received a PM question about applying for EB recently, so I'm posting my answer here for others who may have the same questions; I'm also posting this in the general EB discussion thread:

Any answers I can give about EB now are subject to revision, due to the fact that any experiences I've had predate Scott's hideous new law that went into effect:
http://www.floridajobs.org/publications/news_rel/UC_EnhanceBill.html

Note the start dates for each of these provisions, and note the 5 work searches per week, although they accept one visit to a One Stop Center as a substitute--I would check how that is supposed to be verified.

Having said that, unless things have changed this past year for EB, and I don't see why they would have made things easier to get it, you always had to make a separate application for EB. I think the only time that wasn't the case was when EB was interrupted and then when the state resumed EB those who still had money in their EB accounts were put back on it.

You should find the EB application on the AWI website. However, it seems to be in website limbo from what I can see rght now, not linked up to their usual hyperlink. I found this PDF (hard to find) that is designed to be printed and mailed in.

http://www.floridajobs.org/unemployment/download/forms/AWI-UC310EB.pdf

You can do that, but if I were you and you haven't already applied, I'd take it to a One Stop center and ask them how you are supposed to apply for EB when the online form seems to be missing. You risk them saying they don't handle unemployment questions (it's not really their job at those centers--they're job hunting centers, not UI offices--but you might get someone who knows.) If not that, you're going to have to get on the phone with someone at Tallahassee (try the phone numbers in our contacts list here, not the 800 number to the call centers) to get an answer for sure. If you can't get through, call the governor's office and have their switchboard route you to the Tallahassee office.

EB is a separate state program (unless Scott has already decimated that as well and I haven't heard about that yet--it exists now only because Crist accepted the fed money via executive order before he left), and has different application and reporting requirements. And it ENDS at the end of this year, no matter whether you receive all your EB you're eligiible before that!

Sometimes there is a small delay while they process the application, and if I'm not mistaken, there are one or two weeks that they don't immediately ask you for your work searches while they set you up for online reports. You might still have to report work searches for those weeks, although when I went through it we didn't have to report those first work searches, though we did still have to certify.

You might keep an eye on the Blog-O-Nomics column that Jim Stratton writes for the Orlando Sentinel, and the unemployment column that's in the Miami Herald. My guess is that s--- will hit the fan of confusion when these new laws start to phase in, and the first change starts July 1.

If anyone finds out anything for certain about new procedures, or a usable link to the official EB application online, please post in our EB forums here to help others in your situation.

Thanks!

sc4ram wrote:

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_local_blogonomics/

Do I think it's a good idea? There are one or two procedural efficiency changes that make a bit of sense, but other than that, this law crushes unemployment benefits programs by what I would think is an unconstitutional provision--that of course being the one that allows any employer to challenge any unemployment application (they already have whole law firms that do nothing but that) based on anything an employee does outside of work!!!

I expect this one will be held up in the courts, as it should be.

This new unemployment benefits law may be even worse than I thought, if that's even possible.

I just learned from someone at my local Workforce center that the new skills test now required of all applicants for benefits can actually prevent a person from getting benefits at all! He told me that it's not just a test for placement evaluation for getting an appropriate job, which is I what I had assumed (a reasonable idea), but rather a screening test that, if not passed, can deny benefits!!!

Does anyone here have any experience with this new test and how it is used? I was shocked, though I didn't think I could be any further by Scott's initiatives. How hard is this test, and does it really serve as a filter to deny benefits? Am I mistaken here (I hope)? I got this info from what I would consider the horse's mouth, but it was from someone in the employment section, not the benefits people at AWI.

ok, so march 08 filed a claim that was denied, they found that I left voluntarily. I later found a temp. job with the US Census, I worked for them from Jan 09 thru July 09. I filed another claim which was approved at $275.00 per week, I have gotten benefits since then, and just wiped out my EB account two weeks ago with my two weeks. My issue is that I haven't received all of my benefits that I should have. I received EUC from my very first check until I had to go on EB, I never received the 26 weeks of regular unemployment. I have callled the office, they have emailed some other dept. and hope to know something on Friday. Has this happened to anyone else? and is it possible to qualify for EUI and not regular unemployment? I don't know how far to push this, but I still can't find a job, so it would be great to have a few more weeks if I am entitled. Thanks for your help.

I really didn't explain that my benefits have ended now, according to the computer. I have received about 73 weeks of benefits, so everything except the initial 26 weeks. Is is possible that they made a mistake by not giving me my initial benefits? or am I just hoping? Thanks

sharonp30 wrote:I really didn't explain that my benefits have ended now, according to the computer. I have received about 73 weeks of benefits, so everything except the initial 26 weeks. Is is possible that they made a mistake by not giving me my initial benefits? or am I just hoping? Thanks

I'll make a wild guess about this, but since I don't know all the particulars about your case, I can't say for sure.

It's quite possible, maybe likely, that when you re-applied for benefits after your Census job that you didn't have enough employment banked in your work history to qualify for a new "benefit year." Whenever they look at a new claim, they see first if it qualifies on the old benefit year or a new one. And since the formula involves discounting the most recent previous and current quarter's earnings entirely, I suspect you may not have had enough in to qualify for a new benefit year. (You didn't mention if you were working full-time for that 6 mos.)

When you apply after being laid off can determine how much you qualify for, believe it or not. For example, if you applied in the third quarter (July-Sept), they do not count earnings for that third quarter OR the previous period from April-June, whereas if you waited to apply in October, they would count that earlier quarter.

The fact that you qualified for the full $275 on just that 6 mos work or less makes me think it's quite possible you were still confirmed for your previous benefit year calculation. That sequence of benefits is still calculated on work done way back to March of 2006, according to current law. Plus the state has an interest in qualifying you first for EUC (federal money) if eligible, instead of regular benefits, which come out of the state's own fund.

As to why you would not have been eligible for the full 99 weeks when your benefit is calculated for the max amount, I can't say for sure. Not everyone was able to get the max number of weeks for a number of reasons, sometimes just because of some odd timing considerations for when certain tiers or benfits were cut off.

And it was EB that just ended for you, not an EUC tier? EB was severely curtailed by the state at a number of legislative points, and the new state laws create a whole new picture of benefits that complicates the switchover from the old laws to the new laws.

Then again, it may simply be that AWI has not even yet adjusted their files to reflect the new 2-month extension of benefits on EUC (EB does not get extended automatically with that; it requres the state legislature to approve taking that extra federal money. Another option is that they may have to recalculate your benefit on a new benefit year. If that happens, don't expect it to be the max weekly amount, and perhaps not 26 weeks either, based on just a relatively short work history for those most recent years.

Good luck, and let us know what happens; I'd be curious to know how they handled this.

Thanks for your reply. I was working full time for the Census, and earned just enough to qualify for a new claim, I wonder if they will go back and give me the initial state unemployment now that the other has expired. I don't know if it matters but I had a continous work history for eleven years prior to the initial claim.

sharonp30 wrote:Thanks for your reply. I was working full time for the Census, and earned just enough to qualify for a new claim, I wonder if they will go back and give me the initial state unemployment now that the other has expired. I don't know if it matters but I had a continous work history for eleven years prior to the initial claim.

I still doubt that you were given a new benefit year on which to base your renewed claim. Did you make the new claim after Oct 1? If not, I can't see how you could have qualified for a new benefit year unless you were making an unusually high salary for the Census. They would have discounted all of July earnings and all of April-May earnings, leaving only Jan-March earnings on which to calculate your claim.

And unfortunately, they don't care how long we've worked beyond that 6-quarter most recent period of time. You can figure this out exactly by using the info I put here some time ago:
https://unemployed-florida.forumotion.com/t141-how-to-calculate-unemployment-eligibility-and-the-weekly-benefit-amount

Let's say you were given a brand new benefit year and they calculated state benefits. Calculate your exact earnings using the formulas in that link and your exact number of weeks that you should have received that $275. I know you don't want to hear this, but just because you may have qualified for a new benefit year (if that's the case), it doesn't mean you automatically get a full 26 weeks, especially since your earnings only spanned two quarters, and as I said, unless you claimed after Oct 1 of 2009, they would have counted only half of those earnings.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe that formula for calculating benefits has changed with the new laws passed last summer. The National Employment Law Project has been trying for years to get that formula changed so that they would not discount the most recent quarter, but I'm pretty sure they were not successful in getting that, especially not with our current legislature.

Beyond these calculations, the paperwork you received when your claim began should clearly state your actual benefit year, and include a total amount for your initial account. If it's a starting claim on a new benefit year, you just divide that total by the weekly amount you qualified for, and that's the number of weeks you get of state benefits, not always 26. (In fact, the new state law will cut down that number even further as the unemployment rate declines further (if it ever does).

Many, many people never got the full and mythical "99 weeks, " most often for the same reasons, that not everyone has enough work time in the particular fiscal quarters that are used at the time of the claim on which to base the calculation. That calculation of weeks also affects how many weeks a person might get any of the federal tiers also. The max weeks are not guaranteed to everyone.

Unfortunately, most who actually got the full 99 weeks at the max rate are those who were working full time just at the start of the recession, so those calculations were based on a full year's work with no breaks in many cases. (Don't envy those "99ers" though, they had to wait interminable lengths of time waiting for Congress and the states to argue over passing these new extensions, all while rent and electric bills, etc., etc., were due and this state struggled with a 1970's main frame computer to process all those claims.)

So now, as more and more people are finding only temporary or part-time work, and/or low-paid work, the calculations more often than not don't provide the full amounts or weeks of benefits. It's a vicious circle, less work overall entitles fewer people to any kind of real safety net the way the unemployment laws are set up.