Fact Sheet For Workers:
Qualifying For A New Benefit Year:
Requalifying for Unemployment Benefits After They Expire
(March, 2004)

By National Employment Law Project

The Problem, And A Potential Solution--During the current recession, the federal government provided 13 weeks of extended benefits to most long-term unemployed workers (those out of work for six months or more). Many of the long-term jobless (including many visitors to unemployedworkers.org) have reached the end of their unemployment benefits without finding work. As a result, record numbers of jobless workers are exhausting their benefits. With temporary federal extensions phased out at the end of December 2003, in most states long-term unemployed individuals have no source of federal help or additional state unemployment benefits.

Some long-term unemployed workers may qualify for additional state unemployment insurance benefits after running out of their original entitlement to benefits. This is done by “establishing a new benefit year.” Qualifying for a new benefit year is an option open to workers that have had some intervening work after first becoming unemployed or have wages that were not used to establish eligibility for the original state benefit claim that they exhausted prior to drawing benefit extensions. By setting up a new benefit year, jobless workers can start a new claim for state unemployment benefits (although perhaps at a lower weekly benefit amount and for fewer weeks of benefits).

This fact sheet explains the basic rules for starting a new benefit year and gives specific information about the requirements for doing so for all states. Keep in mind that state rules differ and while we have made every effort to provide accurate information, you should check with your state’s unemployment agency and other sources when trying to qualify for a new benefit year in your particular state. Table 1 at the end of this fact sheet contains a summary of the specifics for each state.

Definitions: A New Benefit Year
Benefit Year: The benefit year is the one-year period after you first filed an unemployment claim and qualified for your regular state unemployment benefits. A weekly benefit amount and duration of benefits were determined based upon your wages earned prior to filing your claim. In many states, your determination of benefits notice will advise you of the beginning and ending dates for your benefit year as well as the wages that your claim was based upon.

Base Period or Base Year: A one-year period prior to your first claim that was used to decide whether you qualified for unemployment insurance in your state based upon your prior wages. The standard base period in many states is the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters prior to the quarter in which you filed your claim for benefits. Eighteen states also use an “alternate base period” if the traditional base period wages are not sufficient to provide eligibility. For more information about base periods and alternate base periods, see the NELP base period fact sheet.

A new benefit year is starting a new series of unemployment benefits. After your current benefit year is over, you can file a new state unemployment claim. If you have sufficient wages in your new base period to regain eligibility, you can establish a second benefit year. Unlike benefit extensions, a new benefit year of state unemployment insurance benefits must be based on earnings that are different from those you had earned when you first qualified for unemployment benefits. If you start a new benefit year, you will have a new weekly benefit amount and a new duration of state unemployment benefits. Depending upon the amount of earnings you had since starting your original benefit year, your benefits may be lower than when you first filed an unemployment claim.

Qualifying For A New Benefit Year
There are two requirements for qualifying for a new benefit year.

Sufficient earnings in your base period: You must have base period earnings that meet the minimum earnings requirements in your state – the same requirements you met when you first qualified for benefits. This is generally called “monetary eligibility.” Almost all states require that you earn both a minimum total earnings, and have earnings that are distributed in certain amounts among different quarters of your base period.  The total earnings required are fairly low, under $5,000 in almost all states. Distribution requirements (such as total earnings that equal one and a half times your high quarter wages) make it harder to qualify in some states. Your state unemployment agency has information regarding monetary eligibility requirements in your state.

Requalifying Wages: In addition, to qualify for a new benefit year all states (but New Hampshire) require that you must have done some work and earned intervening wages since first becoming unemployed and qualifying for unemployment benefits. You are required to make a total of between 3 and 10 times your weekly benefit amount, or a flat earnings amount, depending upon your state’s requirement. This requirement is often called the “requalifying wages” requirement and Table 1 will show you this amount for each state.

Some states require that intervening earnings needed for requalification must come from “insured” or “covered” employment. In everyday language this means your employer paid payroll tax contributions on your wages and you were not paid in cash or were not working “off the books.” If you have any question about whether or not your intervening earnings were “insured” or “covered,” you should file a new claim in any event. Employers sometimes try to avoid paying UI and other payroll taxes. Your claim will be allowed if the state agency decides that your former [employer wrongly failed to count your?] employment was really insured or covered work regardless of how it was labeled by your former employer. Table 1 indicates which states have a requirement of “insured work” for requalifying wages by stating “Yes” in the 3rd column of the table. Click here for Table 1 in .pdf format

Some Examples Of Qualifying For A New Benefit Year
As noted above, state unemployment insurance laws vary in terms of the amount of earnings required for initial monetary eligibility and the number of weeks of requalifying wages required. Table 1 summarizes those rules. We provide two examples of qualifying for a new benefit year to show the application of rules in particular states. Note that timing of earnings and claims filing can be critical.

Jane in Illinois
Jane qualified for regular unemployment benefits in Illinois in March 2003. Her base period was the 4th quarter of 2001 (October through December) and the first three quarters of 2002 (January through September). She has only been able to find fill-in and part-time work since losing her job. She drew 26 weeks of regular state unemployment benefits and three months (13 weeks) of temporary benefit extensions by the fourth quarter of 2003. Her benefit year will expire in March 2004, one year after she filed her claim after her March 2003 layoff. Jane can reapply and seek to establish a new benefit year during the week after her benefit year ends in March 2004. (Two states, Delaware and Missouri, do not require that the prior benefit year expire before starting a new benefit year. Instead, the worker can qualify for a new benefit year by meeting the requalifying wages requirement and filing a new claim.)

Because Jane has wages in the 4th quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2003 that weren’t used to establish her eligibility for unemployment benefits in her first benefit year, as well as earnings from part-time and fill-in jobs during the benefit year, Jane will meet the monetary earnings requirement in Illinois ($1600 in base period earnings, with at least $440 in her highest quarter of earnings), as well as satisfying the requalifying earnings requirement in Illinois (3 times her weekly benefit amount). If she files, Jane will qualify for a new benefit year in late March 2004. Her weekly benefit amount will depend upon her earnings in her new base period and will probably be less than what she was paid during her initial March 2003 claim.

Will in Georgia
Will was laid off in January 2003. He filed a claim for benefits in Georgia, and was found eligible because he had base period wages exceeding the state’s monetary eligibility requirement. In Will’s case, his base period begins the 4th calendar quarter of 2001 (October through December) and continues through the 3rd calendar quarter of 2002 (July through September). Will drew state unemployment benefits from January through June 2003 (26 weeks of benefits). Will then drew 13 weeks of federal temporary extensions through early October. Assume that he obtains holiday fill-in employment with a retail firm.

If Will worked 9 weeks from mid-November through the New Year’s holiday and was again laid off, Will has wages in October, November and December 2002 that are available to qualify him for a new claim at the end of his January 2003 to January 2004 benefit year. However, in January 2004 Will cannot qualify for a second benefit year because he has not earned enough requalifying wages (10 weeks of wages in insured work) since beginning his original benefit year as required by Georgia.

To qualify for a new benefit year in Georgia, Will must obtain additional weeks of insured work prior to filing a new claim after January 2004. Any additional work must be insured and Will must be laid off from it (that is, he cannot quit this work voluntarily or be fired for misconduct) in order to qualify for a new benefit year in early 2004. Will must file a new claim before the end of the 1st calendar quarter of 2004 (January through March) to keep his 2002 4th quarter wages in his base period.

Where You Can Go For More Help.

This fact sheet does not describe all state law requirements and filing procedures. Such information can be found from your state unemployment insurance agency, whose home page can be found at http://www.unemployedworkers.org/resources_for_workers/regular_and_extended_benefits/regui042803.cfm.

You may qualify for help from your local legal services office, which can be found at http://www.lsc.gov/fundprog.htm or from one of several local employment law providers listed on the National Employment Law Project’s website at http://www.nelp.org/about/links/practitioners/index.cfm. 

Unemployedworkers.org and the National Employment Law Project has limited ability to answer questions and does not provide individual legal advice.