Utah “Claimant Guide to Unemployment”

Utah’s “Claimant Guide to Unemployment Benefits” – Helpful Hacks

Written by Ed Gabriel, DrillDown Solution

See all 24 pages at https://jobs.utah.gov/ui/jobseeker/ClaimantGuide.pdf

Qualifying

The base period is the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before the week in which you file your application for benefits.

To determine your unemployment benefit amount, you must have earned wages in two or more calendar quarters of your base period.

There is also a minimum amount of wages required during the base period.

Benefit Year

Your claim is established for a 52-week period called a benefit year. It begins with the effective date of your claim and ends 52 weeks from that date. You may file for weeks you are unemployed until you have exhausted your unemployment benefits. You may also file if you have earnings from part-time employment that are less than your weekly benefit amount

Application

In order to access your unemployment account online, you will need to create a Utah-ID, which requires an email address. To set up your account go to jobs.utah.gov, select “Sign in” (in the upper right- hand corner) then select “my Unemployment” and “Login.”

Weekly Claims Process

You must file weekly claims to receive unemployment benefits. To file a weekly claim, you will need your Social Security Number and PIN. The unemployment claim week begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday at midnight. We encourage you to file your claim on Sunday or as soon as possible after the Saturday week-ending date.

Each week you must answer questions to determine your eligibility for benefits. Failure to file a weekly claim in a timely manner could result in a denial of benefits.

The system will not permit late filing. If you do not file a weekly claim within 27 days from the Saturday of the last week filed, your claim will be late and will be closed.

The first question asked on your weekly certification is, “Did you work or attend paid training?” If you performed any type of work during the week of certification, you must answer “yes” to that question.

If you work less than full-time and earn less than your weekly unemployment benefit amount during a given week, you may continue filing since you will be entitled to partial benefits if you are otherwise eligible. Workforce Services will apply a 30 percent earnings allowance to calculate your weekly benefit 9 payment. For example, if your weekly benefit amount is normally $300.00, you could earn $90.00 (30 percent of $300.00) without affecting payment for that week, however, you must still report those earnings.

If your earnings equal or exceed your weekly benefit amount or you work 40 or more hours during the week, you will not receive any payment or waiting week credit for that week. You must accept all suitable work offered to you or report to Workforce Services you failed to accept such work.

Re-Employment

Your obligation while receiving unemployment benefits is to become re-employed and you should develop a realistic plan to achieve this objective.

A primary component of your re-employment plan will be to contact employers. Unless a Workforce Services representative instructs otherwise, you are required to make a good faith effort to seek full-time work each week that you claim unemployment benefits, even if you are employed part-time or attend school. You should make at least four new full-time job contacts each week. . . . . Your record of employer contacts should include. . . . .

Utah law requires that you will not be paid for the first eligible week claimed. This week is referred to as the waiting week. You must file for this week and meet all eligibility requirements in order to establish the claim and receive waiting week credit. If you meet all the eligibility requirements and file your claim each week, you should receive your first payment about three weeks after you apply for unemployment benefits.

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