NY Unemployment Benefits

With the advent of the pandemic, the lovely bride has been reduced to 40% of full time employment hours, as have all hourly employees at her firm.

Employer advised such employees to file for unemployment benefits under a program the NY Dept of Labor labels "shared services", "shared shifts" or some such.

She applies, and DoL advises that she is entitled to $X, per week. All is good.

The money starts rolling in, but the direct deposit amount is in excess of DoL's stated benefit amount. Beyond that, DoL is making a second direct deposit of about 40% of DoL's stated benefit amount, on the same date as the first direct deposit. And the two deposits continue rolling in.

The lovely bride apprises DoL of the anomaly, to which DoL responds that she may have forgotten to take in to account her authorization for DoL to deduct withholding taxes from her stated benefit amount.

The lovely bride advises me the she has discussed this matter with a few coworkers who are also receiving $$$ in excess of their stated benefit amount.

Are there supplemental programs, of which she and I are not aware, which might account for the excess payments? Is anybody else here experiencing a similar situation?

And, just for kicks and giggles, DoL recently made four deposits in one week. (I'm working on the next missive to DoL).

Thanks for any help anyone can provide in better understanding this anomaly.

TomR

As an aside, why weren't reduction-in-hours unemployment benefits, income based?

Is New Jersey providing similar relief to reduced-hours employees? (With or without the seemingly excess payments)


Is this the $600/week federal stimulus payment? (Or some fraction corresponding to the reduced hours.) 


It’s the extra $600 weekly plus unemployment benefit. It will end on the 25th of July. Those extras that were deposited in one week was most likely the retroactive weeks between when she filed and when she started to receive payment. Enjoy it while you can...


Thank you both for the food-for-thought.

TomR



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