Q: Unemployment Benefits plus still being paid by your job

[stopbush]

Ugh. Here’s the situation we’re in thanks to my wife’s job.

She and other employees were told over two weeks ago to file for unemployment if they wanted as the company hadn’t formulated a plan for the shutdown. So she filed. Got approved and her first check from EDD (CA) was issued.

Yesterday, she talks to the company and they inform her that they plan on reopening May 1 if possible, but in the meanwhile she will be receiving a check this Friday for the last two weeks of stay-at-home non-work, based mainly on her hourly wage without reported tips. They gave no indication that any more checks would be forthcoming.

She told them she was already receiving unemployment. They said that as long as she was “honest” in her filing, that she should be OK with the state of CA...BUT, that she can’t file for UI benefits under the CARES Act. Does that mean she can’t get the $600-a-week the Feds are providing?

Say what?

Trying to figure out how to handle this without running afoul of CA’s UI laws. I suppose I could just report that check from her job as income earned (paid?) during one week, but is that enough.

Pissed off that her job put us in the position. I see us having to pay $ back in the future.

Any ideas?

[W_HAMILTON]

1. Just answer the questions truthfully and she will get what she is entitled to.

Usually you can receive unemployment even if you receive sporadic wages every now and then, you just have to report the wages that you do earn and they usually will take that into account when figuring out your unemployment benefits for that week.

[stopbush]

2. That's what I thought. I've had that situation before when I was on UI.

They didn’t pay any benefits for a week that I got paid from a gig and added a week onto my eligibility term at the end of the 26 weeks.