I own a small business in PA. Yesterday I ran into a woman who used to work for me. She left my employ to try other things in life; we parted on good terms.
So, she told me she is currently unemployed and missed working for me. I mentioned that I would happily re-hire her. She asked if I would be willing to pay her “under the table”. I politely declined. She told me she could not accept my job offer because it would “mess up her unemployment”.:dubious:
Today her boyfriend called me. We chatted about various things, then he explained his gf’s situation. She has a job she likes, but the work diminishes each winter and she gets laid off. She collects UC all winter/spring, then gets rehired.
Really? Could I get a job as a ski instructor, then file for summer unemployment each year?
The way it works in my state is that your eligibility to collect, and the amount you can collect, depends on your previous earnings - and they don’t consider the quarter you’re filing in, or the quarter before that, but the previous 4 quarters (so if you placed a claim now in March 2012, your eligibility would be based on your earnings Oct 2010-Sept 2011).
So while getting laid off and collecting every summer might be possible, it would require building up a pretty solid earnings history otherwise.
Of course while you’re collecting you’re also supposed to be actively looking for work and documenting your search, and accept any work offered to you (IIRC initially you can turn down work that’s below a certain % of your previous salary; eventually you’re supposed to expect any work, even for minimum wage).
This is just a guess, but I think one of the reasons for using such eligibility criteria is that some companies used to use UI as a form of paid vacation for their workers.
In a previous life I worked in a toy assembly plant/warehouse. Obviously the toy business is fairly seasonal, so there was a period of a few months each year when they would lay most of the line workers off. This was great for the company since they got to keep their experience employees for basically the cost of the insurance. And it was great for the employees since they got a few months off every year with only a partial cut in wages.
Seasonal wildland firefighters will sometimes due this. I’m sure that over the course of their careers the majority of them will pay more in than they get out, but for quite a few years they will “scam” the system.
Are public school teachers allowed to do this? E.g. does Mrs. Crabtree down at the local Elementary School get to teach 5th grade from September-June and then sit back on unemployment over the summer?
I don’t know about Mrs. Crabtree, but Mrs. Kunilou and her teacher friends certainly weren’t. Some schools pay over a 52-week period, even though the teacher may teach only 40 weeks.
I’m a substitute teacher, and I can not collect UI over the summer. Why? Because I will have work again the fall (this straight from the state).
So even though I am NOT working, I am not unemployed because maybe I’ll get called in to work someday during the next school year. It really makes no sense to me.
In WA, this is also the case for many seasonal workers, but it depends on the details.
Some employers will simply let you go with no promise about the next year, which lets you claim benefits. They can rehire you or not as a totally separate issue. This kind of scenario is what the OP describes
If the employer instead tells the state that you were not let go, you’re just a seasonal worker who has an offer of employment next season, then there are no unemployment benefits during the summer. However… should they not hire you in the fall, you would qualify for unemployment at that time.
WA adjusts UI rates based on the employer’s history of claims. The difference between a good rate and a bad one can be $2000 per year per employee, so most employers do whatever they can to avoid having workers considered unemployed.
(For the sake of clarity: other states surely have different rules)
There is a bill in the NJ Assembly right now to restrict Unemployment Insurance for seasonal workers (work at a job that is available less than 36 consecutive week a year) in their off-season, just to close this abuse of the system. A person on unemployment benefits needs to assert every two weeks (I think it is two weeks) that they have not worked and have tried to find work during that period. To collect in the way she has been doing is defrauding the government. She is nowhere near alone in doing this.
As an employer for twenty years in a tourist town, I support this so called ‘Fraud’. Without it I would have to train new people from scratch every year, instead of rehiring the trained professionals that I have had for over ten years. Not all seasonal jobs are unskilled. Would you rather have an experienced guide to protect your child form drowning in the river or some newbie?
I suppose I’d rather have an experienced guide - but I must ask, if it’s truly seasonal work why can’t they get other seasonal work during your off season? For example, not only have I known teachers who taught summer school, but also those who worked at camps or resorts or as lifeguards at city beaches. People drive oil trucks during heating season winter and cement mixers the rest of the year (for different companies) or work for landscapers spring ,summer and fall and in snow removal in winter. People work as lifeguards in the summer and at ski areas in the winter.Stores hire seasonal help, UPS hires seasonal help , etc. Is it that your employees can’t do that, or are you afraid they’ll get a year-round job if they can’t get unemployment in the off-season?
There’s no work here in the Winter* at all*. McDonalds stops hiring; many restaurants and hotels close, the population drops by half. There are six stoplights in town and only two others within a hundred mile radius. There’s simply nothing here. Without unemployment, people would be forced to move away. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s my understanding is that unemployment insurance is paid for by the employers and workers and is not subsidized by taxes.
It is worth noting that though teachers typicaally get paid over fifty two weeks, they are only paid for forty. This is not academic: if a teacher has to take any unpaid leave ( for Example, FMLA) each day subtracts a day and a quarter or so from your paycheck.
According to this, the first 26 weeks of benefits are funded through taxes paid by the employer; additional/extended weeks (up to a total of 99 max) that have been authorized by Congress are federally (taxpayer) funded (in my state, anyway, don’t know if things are any different elsewhere).
I’m sure there has to be state or Federal money going into it sometimes- my sister-in-law has been collecting for almost two years and the maximum used to be 26 weeks.
In any event, if there’s no work in your area, your employees are not committing the fraud being committed by the OP’s ex-employee- remember, she was offered a job, but wouldn’t take it on the books because she could not then collect unemployment. It wasn’t that there was no work to be had. I don’t think you need to worry about Utah(?) passing a law like the one proposed in NJ. Different areas have different problems. Although there may be individual towns in NJ that are extremely dependent on tourist business, the population is very dense and there are few, if any areas that are so remote that people couldn’t find work in the off season. People may have trouble finding work, but it’s not due to remoteness- much of the state is in either the NYC or Philadelphia metropolitan area. There may ,however, be an issue with people working for five months or so at seasonal jobs ,applying for and collecting unemployment and then not looking for work in the off-season.
According to this, the first 26 weeks of benefits are funded through taxes paid by the employer
That’s just enough to keep my folks fed over the winter. I’ve paid those taxes for decades and I will continue to do so. Just to provide you guys with a yard stick, none of my workers has ever shown up with a car worth more than $5,000 and none of us has Health Insurance. The welfare queen that is gaming Unemployment Insurance is a myth. Ten bucks an hour, times sixty hours a week, for half a year, supplemented by Unemployment is a very meager lifestyle.