How Unemployment Works in NY

Gotta throw a question out there about unemployment: Does the money you receive on unemployment come actively from your previous employers or from the state? In other words, when you go on unemployment, does your employers account all of a sudden have these charges to help the worker on unemployment or are those funds deducted before the worker was unemployed. Any help I'd appreciate.

And, please, do not turn this into a f**king political discussion, I just want some info.

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Companies DO NOT pay your unemployment benefits- they pay into a fund that pays unemployed workers.The amount paid is based on a percentage of their payroll. If they have a higher rate of previous workers on unemployment, they can pay a higher rate.

A company can contest your eligibility for unemployment; There would be a hearing and a decision made.

It probably varies state to state, but I wouldn't really call it a surcharge. States typically have tiers for the unemployment tax that businesses pay, based on utilization of unemployment by ex-workers. For example, a company that had 25% of it's workforce collecting unemployment benefits would pay more in unemployment taxes than a company that only had 5% of it's workforce collecting benefits.

That tiering gets reset regularly, which is why, to Joe's point, many companies will contest your eligibility for unemployment. They want to make sure that only qualified recipients get the benefit so they're not getting heavily taxed because of false claims.

This would be a small company that I had previously worked for, left for another job that didn't work out, and now returning to the small company but only as part time (15 hours). My boss wants me to come in 2.5+ hours Monday through Friday. I, of course, am going to deduct this from my weekly claim. However, because the days are stretched out M-F and NY State considers working even 1 hour a day's work, I would not be receiving any benefits under this situation. Obviously, I would like to work part-time and receive my deducted benefits, but my boss is kind of a tightwad and probably doesn't want to pay me and the unemployment charges at the same time.

Needless to say, I'm trying desperately to find work so I don't have to deal with any of it.

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