Unemployment Sucks

In this recession, many people are out of work. Fortunately, I am not one of them. I am happy to have a job during this recession. But, this since business is down, a lot of companies are having
furloughs instead of layoffs to get by. This is better than getting laid off; you take time off, and can get unemployment benefits, and you don’t have to look for another job.

My company is doing this; for now, we are talking one week off every four weeks. However, the state unemployment system is not set up for furloughs, it seems. How it is supposed to work is as following:

1. File an unemployment claim for the first week you're furloughed.

2. Claim jobless benefits for the first week. You must serve a "waiting week" before you start receiving payments.

3. When you go back to work, restart your claim each time you are furloughed.

4. Claim the furloughed week after restarting your claim.

What happens is this:

1. You file your claim, and enter the information for the first week off.

2. You restart your claim for your next week off.

3. You find out that your first week off was not counted as your waiting week.

What happened? Well, either you forgot to claim the first week, or there is a bug in their software, and it did not note that you claimed that week. I think it is a bug, since this happened to a lot of people at work. Or the instructions are not clear.

So, now you have to talk to the unemployment division to get the whole thing figured out. What fun! That does not go well always, as the article above talks about.

Let’s assume that you get your claim figured out. Now you will get your money. But how much?

You may get your unemployment check on a debit card. And that card may have fees.

I’ll be glad when the recession is over.