Sorry, when I made my statement about who pays U.I. I should have said, there were lots of workers working, and the employers were paying in on a lot of workers. Because the employer keeps an individual payroll record, and the system bills them according to each individual worker they have working for them. So ideally, there should be wages paid in on each worker, and if they never draw unemployment, it goes into a general pool of unemployment money that each state maintains that cannot be touched for anything else, and if they need unemployment and qualify, it is there for them, it has been paid in based on their wages individually.
That's why so many people think that it's like Social Security, they think it has been taken from their checks, because when the state does a search, there come all their own personal payroll records from covered employers. But cbg is right on, there's a tiny number of states that have actually figured out a way to make workers pay for at least a tiny portion of it. I pray to goodness my good old state, which is now the champion worst place in the nation to receive unemployment benefits doesn't get hold of this one!
Now to get to answers. I would advise you to go on and file this week's claim form on line, but on it, mark "Yes" to the question about did you receive a pension? And yes, indeed, it will be picked up by the system and it will stop your claim. This system has been in place and working fine for many years. No check will be issued for this week until this issue is resolved and a worker changes the code on this week's certification.
So do both. Send in the certification, with yes marked on the pension question, AND call them and go through the whole discussion and let them get the information.
As for having to hold the line for hours, yes, it is so. But the problem we have is that when we call somewhere, we are conditioned to expect instant service. You dial the phone, someone answers. If you're going to have to wait in line, wouldn't you rather do it at your house, in your jammies, drinking a cup of your coffee, or in a public office with a big bunch of other sweaty people you wouldn't necessarily choose to spend the morning with? And if the lines are jammed, it means SOMEONE is getting to talk to them, it might as well be you. So start early. Some phone systems begin at 7:00am, try this and see. Be patient. If you can't get in on Monday morning, which is traditionally the very busiest, try again Tuesday morning, but try early and persistently until you do get this problem worked out, because nothing else will do, you must talk to someone and you must get it straightened out.
The quicker you do, the less the likelihood you have been overpaid already. If they do determine you're already overpaid, no amount of argument on your part or claim that you just didn't understand or anything else will prevail. If your pension began two weeks ago, if you are going to be backpaid on your pension, then you will have been overpaid those two weeks on your unemployment. They won't aggressively pursue you, it's not a fraud overpayment that you did deliberately, there will be no penalties, but it will have to do with what they determine about your pension eligibility and your unemployment eligibility. Solve it as soon as you are able.
Now, about the issue of you are going to sign up for a month of pension, and you are not going to be paid for that month until after it has passed, but you will have begun to be paid your pension as of the first week. You are answering questions for unemployment benefits by the week. Each Sunday through Saturday week, you are answering the questions and will or will not be paid based on that week, whether you received any income or other money or had enough money to get by on or not.
When you stop the claim by answering "yes" to the pension question, you will not receive any money from unemployment until a decision is made. Then, as I said, you may receive no further money, you may receive part of a week's unemployment benefit, or you may receive the whole amount again with a pension decision in place. But it won't come in any way timely to cover you week to week as far as having something to live on.
Unemployment insurance is not a needs based program. When you signed up for it, they did not ask any income questions. You were not asked if you had other resources, or if you had a working husband who might be able to support you, or whatever. You are paid unemployment IF you qualify for it, when all issues are clear for you to be paid, when you are making the requisite job searches. You are not paid because otherwise you'd starve, or because you need something week to week and you're a real good person.
They are always making much about a proverbial "lottery winner" who is drawing unemployment. But if this were true, if you won the lottery this week, as long as you certified for benefits and stated that you were able and available and actively seeking work, you would be fully qualified for unemployment benefits. If your grandmother died and you inherited twenty million dollars, that doesn't disqualify you this week either. It's not work done for wages paid for by an employer.
In your situation, solve the pension question very quickly, so that you are not overpaid and won't have to possibly deal with not only a loss of some income, the unemployment weekly checks, but will have to give them some back with penalties. Certain kinds of incomes, some pensions, are considered the same by unemployment law as working and being paid wages. If you do that, and are paid for a week of unemployment, you have been overpaid, and if it happened because you failed to deal with it, you have committed unemployment fraud. Do every thing you can to make sure this doesn't happen.
Since unemployment is finite, there are only a certain number of weeks you are going to be able to draw it, and then it stops, and is over, some people make the decision not to sign up on their pension until they've drawn out all the unemployment they are entitled to. There is no mandate on when you have to begin drawing your pension. In many cases, you are making the decision to give up your unemployment when you begin your pension, because you can't do both. As I said, you didn't pay in the unemployment, you have no inherent right to it, and there's no restriction on when and how you choose to handle the pension issue. So it's one of those decisions you have to make.
If the decision goes that you are paid some of your unemployment each week, if the pension does not wipe it out, but merely lowers the amount you can get weekly, that is really a nice alternative, because you do not lose that money, you just get it for more weeks. In other words, if your unemployment claim has $10,000 in it to be drawn out, and instead of drawing the weekly maximum amount you set up for, you will only be getting $100 a week in unemployment benefits, you haven't lost any benefits. You'll just receive more weeks of unemployment benefits at the lesser amount, will continue to draw it weekly until you have drawn out the whole amount in the claim, but in far more than the standard 26 weeks.
