How to file for Unemployment Insurance is a very commonly asked question these days. This article is a step by step guide to file Unemployment Insurance for New York State. The first and foremost thing you should ensure is that your W2 for the previous year and your pay stubs show your taxable state as New York. I have heard many people struggling with this part specially when they reside in New Jersey and work in New York.
Following are the step to file for New York State Unemployment Insurance.:
1. Hop on to New York State Department of Labor website www.dol.ny.gov and click on Unemployment Insurance
2.It will take you to a drop down menu as below. There are different options given there, see what suits your profile and click on that option. In most of the cases it would be the first option which says file your first claim for benefits.
Once you click on that option, it will take you to the page below.
3.Click on “File your first claim for benefit’ and it will take you to another page where in on the left hand side, you will see sections explaining how to file claim.
Click on each section to understand the process: The DOL site is very user friendly here forward
4.Once you have seen the video get ready to create your profile. The information listed below is needed to create your profile.
5.Once you have created your profile, go ahead and submit it. You have to then, start submitting the weekly unemployment claim for yourself every Sunday preferably. Which means you should file a claim starting the next Sunday from when you last worked. NYS gives you an option to file claim for the previous week through out the next week till Saturday, but it is advisable that you file the claim on the corresponding Sunday or Monday to be on the safe side.
For example if your last working day was May 29th and you created the profile on 30th. You can start filing the claims from June 8th which is a Monday ,preferably between the hours of 7.30 am to 7.30 pm for the week of June 1–6 and so on . If you miss filing the claim for a week you will not be paid for that week.
Please note if your last day worked was May 29th 2020, then you start claiming benefits from the week of June 1st. However , your payments would start reflecting in your accounts in approximately 10 business days , as it takes some time for them to process the information and set you up in a cycle.
The maximum payout of weekly unemployment is $504 depending on how many years you worked in the NYS and what was your salary.The minimum payment approximately would be $182 /per week if you earned less than $4000 per quarter.
Please note weekly certifications are different from creating a profile. Creating profile is a one -time task. Weekly certification is done every week as long as you are unemployed to certify that you are unemployed for the said week and you did not receive benefits of any sorts during that period . It’s a one page multiple choice questionnaire you have to fill and submit after logging into your profile. It can be accessed on various places on the site including the one below:
The page below is a link which you can save to directly hop on to this page to log in every week and certify for your claim:
Once you log in you should see this screen to file your weekly certification or see the payment history:
Some additional information :
There is an app on the website called estimated weekly unemployment insurance benefits calculator. It gives you a fair idea of how much unemployment you should expect weekly, based on the data you provide.
You can also check out this link below to understand how your benefits are calculated:
https://www.labor.ny.gov/formsdocs/factsheets/pdfs/p832.pdf
If for some reason your claim has not been accepted or you have questions regarding your claim you can directly email to the DOL with questions , send them supporting documentations. You can also call them for further assistance. Do not panic if your claim has not been processed or there is a delay due to some discrepancy, in all possibilities things get resolved once you call or email them. Below is a screen shot of the message center which you can use to email them.
I look forward to your comments on the article. If I have missed explaining something let me know. If there is something I have not explained correctly let me know as well. Hope this helps.
