0 I made four dollars -- will I lose my unemployment pay??

Can you lose unemployment $$ for making $1/day?

by:  Curt MacRae

, aka McCrabby 

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Are you currently receiving unemployment compensation?  If so, and if you are generating some income elsewhere, even at pennies a day, you could be putting yourself in jeopardy.  You could:

1. lose your unemployment compensation
2. be guilty of a crime

Two days ago, a friend, who has become a writer at the Examiner site (where McCrabby used to write and make a few bucks, but lost his freedom of topics) came to me and asked if there could be a conflict in earning some money at this site, while collecting unemployment.  My first response was, "how many reads are you getting?"  When the anwer came back at "about 20," it seemed to be an almost ridiculous question.  He's going to make about thirteen cents per day, at that rate.  However, as I thought more about it, I began to examine the idea more closely.

Common sense is uncommon.  How many times have we seen someone take a risk for a miniscule return?  And lose?   I decided to look a little further, because it does not pay to base a decision on common sense, when you're dealing with governmental agencies.

If you've lost your job and are now one of the ever-growing multitude of people who receive checks from your state unemployment commission, you might be at risk of losing those checks, and possibly more, if you earn ANY income from blogging, or other seemingly insignificant income sources, such as Google Adsense.   

For example, the Examiner (my friend's site) pays just under a "2/3 of a penny per read" to writers for the readers that read their work -- I have about  a hundred, to several hundred readers, although this blog earns no income.....).   Obviously, this is not major income source for Examiner writers, and some people make a dime a day or so.  Even with 1,000 readers per day, which is a lot of readers (keep reading) the income might be $6.50. 

There was a recent Forbes story detailing the frustrations of a New York attorney, who was laid off, but lost her unemployment benefits, because she was blogging, and bringing in less than $2/day.  

According to New York state offices, anyone receiving unemployment benefits who works one day and earns less than $405 will have his unemployment compensation  reduced by 25% that week.  If she were to earn more than $405 in a single week all unemployment compensation would be negated for that week.  

According to the article in http://www.forbes.com/, New York state cut her weekly benefits by 25 per cent, and sent her a form to fill out and send to her employer.   Unsure who her employer might be, or whether she was self-employed, she called to get definition.  She said that a state official told her she shouldn't have been required to claim her "income" since it was "residual," a payment made for services previously rendered. New York does not regard residual income as employment pay that could make someone ineligible for unemployment benefits.  But, another official gave her another answer.  It's confusing, and can be much like making a call to the IRS; two different calls, to two different contacts, may generate two completely unique answers to a single question. 

In Michigan, a fellow Examiner writer, did some of her own checking and said  that the contact at the state unemployment office "checked for me said that for freelancers who make a variable amount, and who often get paid for work that was done months ago,  should only claim gross income once a month when actually paid.    ... It will probably lower my check for that given week, but leaving it off is not an option because that would be fraud."

Income-generating activity promoted at social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.,  and public blogs, can be easily discovered through a simple Google search. You may find that the $1 a day you make blogging could cost you your unemployment check.  Investigate your options.  Google your own name to see what comes up.

To summarize, this is simply an alert.  Check with your local unemployment office, if you're in the situation of drawing unemployment compensation from the state, while attempting to do other things to generate income for yourself, do the proper investigation to make sure you won't get investigated.

Good luck on your job search.  Stay safe, stay honest and legal, and make some money.

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NOTE:   You can follow me at , where I tweet new articles (that's about all I tweet), or you can get notice of new articles on the home page at this site (just subscribe by entering your email address -- I won't know who you are, but I'm am always thrilled to get new subscribers)..    You are also invited to join our LinkedIN group, called GET TO WORKshop, where other job-search-related topics are discussed (everyone is accepted).  Thank you for finding my work.