Unemployment and retirement pension

[krimlac]

the whole unemployment insurance sign up and certification process is full of questions about retirement pensions. This is for a reason. There is lots of entanglement.

Each week that you have collected your unemployment insurance, you have filed a certification for it, filling out questions indicating that you had not worked that previous week, that you were able, available and actively seeking work, and there would probably be a few more certification questions. One of these would always be something about "have you begun collecting retirement benefits, has there been any change to a retirement benefit, pension, so on and so forth, anything you were drawing?" because yes, drawing a pension may make you ineligible for unemployment insurance. Certain kinds do, certain kinds do not. That is why as soon as you begun getting the pension you were supposed to report it, and the unemployment system would have gotten the necessary information and made a decision about whether you could legitimately collect both at the same time.

I gather you just didn't tell them. Right? Your bad. Because if this is a retirement pension which you report on your income taxes for the year, and based on your income tax forms, the system most definitely will cross match it with your unemployment and they very well may declare you overpaid when this happens. You can bet they'll eventually be in touch.

My best advice? Talk to someone within the state unemployment system. As soon as possible. Oh yes, you can get through and talk to a live person somewhere at some time. Keep trying. If you are going to be overpaid, the sooner you stop the checks and get this straightened out, the better off you will be, the less likely they will be to consider this fraud. And ultimately, they may not decide you are overpaid. But having this hanging over your head is not worth it, having them come back and demand you repay all your benefits a year or two after the fact is going to be rough on you. And they will eventually catch this.

Some kinds of retirement pensions, like social security retirement, are okay to be drawing and have no effect on your benefits as long as you do not remove yourself from the labor force. But other types of non-contributory retirement pension plans may definitely stop you from getting unemployment. Drawing out iras or 401k's in a lump sum is not the same thing as beginning to receive a regular monthly pension check, and does not affect your benefits. But in any case, they will need to make a decision, decide if you are overpaid, and then you and they can work together toward getting the money paid back if it is necessary.

Don't worry, if you simply cannot pay back an overpayment, and you have been fully cooperative with them about the situation, they will usually work with you as much as possible, may allow you to defer the payments, get a waiver, something. But stop drawing and start calling and asking and going about fixing this situation quickly.

what if the pension ( no contribution on part of employee )you are receiving had nothing to do with the current employer that laid you off. Will this still be deducted from your award?

 

[Silverplum]

Please start your own thread for your questions. Thanks.

what if the pension ( no contribution on part of employee )you are receiving had nothing to do with the current employer that laid you off. Will this still be deducted from your award?

 

[commentator]

Yes, that's a lot of old post to have to go through to get to your issue, it's best to start your own here. In general, the answer is probably no, if the pension source is not a base period employer, which means none of the wages used to set up your claim came from the employer you are receiving the pension from, it probably won't reduce your unemployment. BUT ALWAYS ALWAYS CLEAR THIS THROUGH YOUR OWN STATE SYSTEM AND REPORT THE PENSION ON YOUR OWN PERSONAL UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIM. There are always questions about retirement pensions in a the paperwork for an unemployment claim. DO NOT think you can get away without telling the unemployment system that you are receiving a pension from anywhere. Even if it is not going to be counted against you, you must report it and let them make a decision about it. Not to do so would be fraud, and they will find out through the system and you could be cut off, overpaid, and penalized for failing to report it.

 

[schoolnurse58]

NJ Unemployment benefits and pension

I am currently getting the max per month in NJ unemployment benefits. I claim benefits each week. I will be getting a pension check starting in three weeks from my former employer. Couple of questions:

Do I wait until I actually get my first pension check before notifying NJ unemployment when I fill out the weekly claim? I do not want to get overpaid by NJ on the UE benefits; however, I want to make sure that my pension check is actually being deposited in my account before I cut off the UE benefit. If I see my pension check deposited -- my plan currently is not to file anymore claims for UE (since my pension will be greater than my UE monthly -- they (NJ) will decide NOT to give me any additional UE benefits). Is this ok? Do I need to let NJ know ahead of time that I will be getting a pension? If so, why?

Additional questions: I have been working at this company for 40 years, then got laid off. They merged 3 times during my tenure. The pension plan was discontinued after the second merger -- but all the funds were frozen 13 years ago (meaning that the company, after the second merger, did not make any further contributions to the pension plan). Is it possible, just possible via some loophole, that I may still collect my pension and UE benefits because of this situation? I have a feeling that if I try to argue this, my current company and NJ UE will probably disagree with me. My points are: no contributions to my pension were made by the employer for the last 13 years, the pension plan was discontinued when the company merged. Any thoughts? Thanks

 

[cbg]

Why do you believe that the previous requests to start your own thread do not apply to you?

 

[schoolnurse58]

Why do you believe that the previous requests to start your own thread do not apply to you?

I'm sorry, I'm not exactly sure what you mean. I just signed on to this forum and thought I can post a question about UE benefits? You're response seems to have a negative tone -- did I do something wrong to offend you?

Aside from that -- my question(s) are indeed different than the other posts and it would be nice to hear what others think. If I should post this somewhere else, I'll be happy to do so -- no problem.

 

[commentator]

Instead of hooking on to an old old post, you are supposed to start your own thread. We had another person in 2012 who hooked on to this old post from 2011 instead of starting their own thread. I made the mistake of answering that person here, instead of telling them to open their own thread. Then you came on all these years later, and asked another question on the same thread.

If you'd read the previous threads carefully you would have heard us asking this person to start their own. But I am probably most at fault, because when someone asks me a question, I feel very tempted to respond, even though you don't ask the question in the proper place. And now you're sounding all defensive with one of our volunteers here.

BUT I will tell you this, you're absolutely dead wrong about what you say you are thinking of doing. Right away, no hesitation, you need to discuss this whole pension issue with the unemployment system, with a Living human being in the system, to specify exactly what you are going to receive, to heck with "waiting to see if the pension checks actually go into my account" and I can also tell you if you stop your unemployment, even for a few weeks, for a specific reason, you will play heck getting it started back again, while if you'd already worked this out with them, you'd not have any breaks in your claim.

Whatever. If you want answers, please start a thread and I'd be glad to try to provide you with some useful information. Others here are much more expert in the field of pension management, it's not a good idea to be rude to anyone.