Payment Changes

• When you perform temporary work, most states, including California and New York, allow you to keep your unemployment insurance claim open. When you complete your weekly or biweekly continuation of benefits forms or report, list the amount of money you earned from temporary work. The state deducts your earnings from your potential weekly benefits payment. If you earn more that unemployment would pay in a given week, then you receive no money from the state for the week.
  
  

Examples

• If you are a California resident whose benefits determination allows for the maximum $450 in unemployment per week and you earn $300 gross doing temporary, then the Employment Development Department will reduce your payment to $150 for the week. However, if your temporary work pays $600 for the week, then the Employment Development Department will pay you nothing for the week. Earning more than your weekly unemployment benefits does not cause you to owe the state any money, and the development department will not close your claim because you reported earnings for the week.
  
  

Carryover

• Temporary earnings do not carry over between weeks. Whatever you earn each week only counts against your payments for that week. For instance, if you earn $600 during the first week of the month and then nothing the following week, you receive full benefits for the second week, even if your claim renewal form or report is biweekly.
  
  

Benefits Year

• Because your work is temporary, your claim does not close. That means when you begin receiving benefits again, they count against your maximum for your current benefits year. That means if New York approved you for the maximum $10,530 per benefits year (as of this article's publication), and before you found temporary work you collected the maximum $405 per week for 10 weeks, you have $6,480 left from which to draw for the year. The end of your temporary work does not entitle you to a new claim and another $10,530 benefits allowance. However, the good news is that the weeks you work help preserve your remaining benefits. New York benefits doled out at the maximum $405 per week last 26 weeks. However, if you didn't receive benefits for two weeks, then your unemployment benefits can stretch to at least 28 weeks.