You may get laid off again. Here’s what to know about your unemployment benefits

Millions of Americans went back to work in May and June as states started reopening and a federal loan program facilitated ailing small businesses rehire workers.  

But the economic recovery is sputtering, some states have re-imposed shutdown proceedings and many businesses have run out of loan funding — conditions that may lead to another round of layoffs. 

Indeed, numerous than half — 56% — of Paycheck Protection Program borrowers have exhausted their loan funding, agreeing to a survey published last month by the National Federation of Independent Business, a trade group.

Nearly a quarter of borrowers ahead to to lay off at least one employee after using their loan, the group found. And current law doesn’t allow businesses to get a approve of loan. (Business owners have until Aug. 8 to apply for their first one.)

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For people who lose their jobs again, there’s a silver lining: They can suitable resume their unemployment benefits and essentially pick up where they left off.

However, as is usually the case with unemployment benefits, the policies can be confusing.  

“Everything about unemployment insurance is too complicated,” Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Livelihood Law Project, has told CNBC.

For one, states set different rules for their unemployment systems. But here’s what Americans across the territory can generally expect.

Applying for unemployment benefits starts a “benefit year” for that individual. A forward year is the 52-week period following the date you filed a claim.

Someone who filed for unemployment in March 2020 would compel ought to a benefit year that lasts until March 2021, for example.

Jobless workers can collect benefits throughout that period, even through multiple waves of unemployment.

However, states put limits on the benefits people can pick up — in weekly amounts and total duration — over that yearlong time frame. Those limits often show someone won’t be eligible to collect benefits for the whole year.

Americans can think of unemployment benefits like a bank account, pronounced Chris O’Leary, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

Let’s say someone gets about $380 a week — the undistinguished in the first quarter this year — in state unemployment benefits. The state, like most others, pays aids for up to 26 weeks (about six months).

This person would have a “bank account” of $9,880.

Now let’s say this person started experience $380 a week over the 13-week period since early May. They got their old job back and stopped collecting unemployment. After some interval, they are furloughed again.

Half their bank account would be left. In other words, they’d be expert to resume their old benefit level — $380 a week — for 13 more weeks.

Some states allow people to meet benefits for longer than the maximum duration (i.e., 26 weeks) if they’re drawing down a smaller chunk of their “bank account” each week, O’Leary suggested.

This can occur through work-sharing programs, for example, which pay prorated unemployment benefits to part-time workers. Let’s say the just the same person’s hours were cut in half. They could theoretically get 50% of their benefit (i.e., $190 a week) for dead ringer the time (52 weeks). 

However, not all states operate their programs this way, O’Leary said.

(One important note: The Vigilances Act, a federal coronavirus relief law enacted in March, supplements state benefits with an extra $600 a week. These payments, which are supplied by the federal government and lasted through July 31, don’t increase the size of one’s unemployment “bank account.”)

The CARES Act and other rules mean people can get benefits over a much longer period of time than is typically the proves. 

The law funds an additional 13 weeks of benefits for unemployment recipients. This extension, called Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, expires at the end of 2020.

Submits also have rules, which predate the CARES Act, that offer “extended benefits” during periods of cheerful unemployment in their state.  

Most states have triggered these additional benefits, typically around 13 very weeks, Evermore said. Some states like Florida and North Carolina pay fewer (around six weeks), and others pay up to 20 weeks.

Distant from the 13 extra weeks offered through the CARES Act, which are unavailable past year-end, the extra weeks extended via “extended benefits” can bleed into next year if a person remains unemployed.

So, our theoretical unemployed worker could access $380 a week for a by year. (This factors in a typical 26-week state benefit duration, a 13-week CARES Act extension and an additional 13-week term offered via state enhanced benefits).

This amount would be available over several periods of unemployment during that while period.

Going forward, the person would no longer get an extra $600 a week in unemployment benefits that the Take care ofs Act offered through July 31. Federal lawmakers are currently deciding whether to extend or lessen the aid. Any new benefits desire likely be retroactive, meaning recipients would get amounts due for weeks of unemployment extending back to the end of July.

Workers may bring into the world to reapply for benefits when transitioning into new periods of duration (for example, when transitioning from traditional say benefits to the extra 13 weeks provided by the CARES Act), though states vary in their processes. 

The CARES Act furnished some groups, like self-employed and gig workers, a total 39 weeks of unemployment benefits, via the Pandemic Unemployment Relief program. It expires at the end of the year.

These workers are typically ineligible for traditional state benefits.

High levels of joblessness could persist into next year.

That could be established problematic for workers who’ve exhausted or nearly depleted their benefits, Evermore said. 

While a person can reapply for unemployment after the end of their trend “benefit year” — in March 2021, let’s say, which would mark roughly a year from the beginning of the pandemic in the U.S. — their aid may be much undersized than it had been previously. They may also be deemed ineligible for any benefits.

States typically use a person’s earnings on top of the prior four quarters to determine the amount of their weekly unemployment pay. But a long spell of joblessness would indubitably mean workers don’t have enough wages over that period to qualify for benefits. If they qualify, it may be for a cut amount.

Congress passed a law during the Great Recession that prevented this dip in benefits from occurring, Evermore claimed. Lawmakers may do so during this recession, she said.