Disqualified for Unemployment Due to Receiving Pension Benefits

My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Colorado

I was forced to take early retirement after being laid off after 22 yrs with Schlumberger. I went from making 6 figures down to social security (reduced by age of 64). So I filed for my pension, also reduced because of age. I filed for unemployment in Colorado and it was accepted. I spoke to an agent on the phone at this accouncement (Apr 2015) and I aksed if I was eligible while getting pension and SSA. I was told yes, and the only requirement was to make 3 job searches a week and keep a record. I did so with the exception of a few weeks when I would be reapplying for same jobs from previous week.

Colorado unemployment sent me a questionaire which I filled out and returned. Now Colorado unemployment has contacted me and told me that Schlumberger has sent them documents showing my pension. We discussed this on phone and I told them it appears I had made a mistake after being misled in April and thought I was eligible. They requested a copy of job search log for week mentioned in questionaire, (Aug 30 - Sept 5th). I emailed the job search log for requested dates. Now they say that they need entire log, they keep making more and more requests and making conflicting statements and changing their mind on what's needed from me.

I have obviously screwed up and am concerned on how I can pay this back, looks like I have been overpaid for 3 months so far. Agent will not tell me what will happen for repayment, other than possible garnishment. Payments from them have stopped as of this month.

I'm very sorry to hear that.

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You're eligible, but your pension and social security payments were supposed to be reported on the MyUI and it reduces your payment. If you didn't do this right, you'll need to repay the overpayment. There's no out for claiming you were told something different. If you're still receiving payments legitimately, they'll dock those. When the payments stop, then you'll have to repay them. They will permit a repayment plan over time if you don't have the cash.

Unemployment is not needs based. It is eligibility based. And it is greatly affected by whether or not you are receiving a pension from your employer. If you are drawing a certain type of contributory pension from your employer, that is considered wages just as if you were still on salary. That will affect your unemployment benefits and your eligibility to receive them just as if you were working. That's why all those questions. They don't ask them just to hassle you personally, this is part of the process.

When you called and asked at the beginning of your claim, you got a partly right answer. You can draw Social Security retirement and it does not affect your unemployment benefits as long as you have not actually removed yourself from the labor force by failing to do further job searches and indicate you are seeking another job.

Pensions are another situation all together. If you are receiving a pension, you are supposed to discuss this at great length with the claims taker who begins your claim. There is probably a pension question of some type on every weekly certification for benefits that you must complete to get paid for a week of benefits.

It's hard not to notice this repetitious questioning about pensions, and if you are receiving a pension which you did not have a decision about with them, and now they have gone back and gotten the information from the company, which they always do, then you can pretty much expect that you may have gotten slightly overpaid because of it and you'll have a bit of unemployment to pay back.

What they do as part of this decision is take the monthly total gross amount of the pension and divide it by four (weeks in the month.) They compare this amount from your weekly unemployment benefit amount. If it is less, they give you a small portion of your unemployment benefits each week until you have drawn out the whole claim, which may extend your time drawing benefits, though it reduces the weekly amount. If that weekly pension amount is more than the amount of unemployment you could draw in a week, you get no unemployment insurance as long as you are drawing the pension.

It doesn't matter on whip what you were told by someone who works there. It may have been the first hour of the first day when this person actually worked at the office. Or they may just have flat out lied to you. But even though they told you it wouldn't count, when a claim is taken, there always must be information gathered and a decision made on whether or not your pension was the kind that counts against you in unemployment benefits or whether it isn't.

You have no part of this decision, and they'll wash it all down and figure out if you have been overpaid. If you are going to be able, as I mentioned, to draw a small part of your unemployment each week while receiving the pension, you will have to meet all the other eligibility requirements and continue to make weekly certifications for each week, even though you get a greatly reduced amount. If you have been overpaid here at the beginning of the claim, they'll let you continue to file for weeks and collect the money back until the overpayment is covered. Then you'll continue to file for weeks and will begin drawing the reduced amount of unemployment again (unless, of course, you've found another job, at which time you won't need any more unemployment benefits, though you may or may not still have an overpayment.)

The good news is, these types of overpayment are usually considered non-fraud overpayments, which mean that there will be no penalties or fraud charges involved with them. They'll work it out with you if they possibly can. But if you just walk away with your head in the air from here on saying you just won't deal with unemployment any more, or when you get a notice that you are overpaid, you'll likely end up with a fraud overpayment and more trouble, possibly wage garnishment or confiscation of income tax returns and substantial penalties.

When there are possible issues with retirements and pensions, what they do is usually let you go on and begin receiving benefits while you are having a decision made about your pension issues, as long as you are making the required job searches.

And oh yes, about job searches, they can actually request that you submit to them each week in writing three or however many places you have made a job search. It's just part of the requirements. Especially when someone is "retired" out of a place, or takes "early retirement" they are especially careful that you are not drawing having "removed yourself from the labor force" as in, you're not looking for another job. Even when you are an educated professional making six figures, and you know all about how you think you need to go about looking for jobs, there's a certain way that you have to do it for them, and that's the only way.

Each week that you have been drawing for, you are required to make three job searches if that's what your state's system requires, even if you are going to have to write down the same place more than once. As long as you don't use the same three places for every week, within reason, you are allowed to recheck on job places. Otherwise, you must spread out and find more places to apply. It doesn't matter if those are the only three places in the state that paid what you'd like to have, or that do the same type of work you want to do, etc. You have to apply at other places too.

You do this as part of the requirements for receiving unemployment for that week. You don't arbitrarily decide that you don't need to make a job search this week, because you've got all the places you're applying covered. Use your creativity a little bit. Branch out. Apply for jobs in other states, different industries, etc. Don't try to argue with them about whether you needed to do it, just do it. But you have to come up with SOMEWHERE you've applied each week. It's not subjective. They don't discuss it with you, you just have to DO IT. They're pretty good about accepting what you say about where you've looked, don't forget. Come up with it. People you've asked about possible job openings in social situations, places you've submitted resumes to on line, etc.

If you receive a notice that you're overpaid by decision, call them at once and ask them how they want to deal with it. Right now it's not much. It will depend a lot on whether you're going to be able to draw a reduced weekly amount right now. But that you were misinformed does not mean you are not overpaid. I have seen this one played out fully. I saw a professional person go through a whole appeals program, all the way to civil court, and who did end up having to pay back a whole claim a year later. In this case, he had definitely been misinformed and misguided by the person who took his claim who honestly thought his pension did not count and kept telling him this. It was a non penalty overpayment, but he still did have to pay it back.

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Quoting comment/ator

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Unemployment is not needs based. It is eligibility based. And it is greatly affected by whether or not you are receiving a pension from your employer. If you are drawing a certain type of contributory pension from your employer, that is considered wages just as if you were still on salary. That will affect your unemployment benefits and your eligibility to receive them just as if you were working.

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In Colorado (which is the state the poster said he was in), my post gives the SPECIFIC information rather than talking generalities. He was told correctly that a pension/SS payment will not make him ineligible, but Colorado does reduce the payment for those who are receiving these payments (by the exact amount of the pension payments prorated over the UI payment period). Colorado doesn't treat it as if you are working (i.e., you are still "eligibile") you're benefit is just reduced.

A pension will not automatically make him ineligible. I wholeheartedly agree. I also doubt that they told him he didn't even have to mention it, or that he didn't have to answer any questions about it unless it was, as I said, someone who was very new to the system. What they have to do when someone is receiving a pension is get a boat load of information about it. If it is contributory, as in partially paid by the employer, and they get this information from the employer's payroll, not from the claimant, then it definitely does reduce the claim, and they have very definite guidelines on the way in which it will reduce, or on some cases, eliminate it.

A pension doesn't make in ineligible PERIOD. As long as he is unemployed, able and looking for work he's eligible. It's just a matter as to whether he will get any money after they apply the reductions. Colorado won't allow you to double dip.

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Quoting flyingron

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A pension doesn't make in ineligible PERIOD

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It might. Seeing as how CO is a neighboring state, they may be taking a page out of AZ's play book. Claimants that take pensions are presumed to have withdrawn from the labor market (able and available), and here, their work searches are scrutined to death (this guy's post suggests that same pattern). That's why even while I was eligible to file for social security while on UI, and I was told it was perfectly ok to do so, I did not because I didn't want to have to deal with submitting detailed work search information week after week. Instead, I knew that each month I deferred my SS, it would just go up, and I hope to live long enough that it will be the right decision.

A pension, particularly an employer contributory pension is NOT the same thing as social security retirement or an IRA. And if you were getting enough of one, a contributory pension, where the employer has contributed a certain minimal amount of the money in the pension fund could make it to where you did not qualify for unemployment benefits at all because you were receiving too much money each week from it. Because it is money that comes directly from the employer, which according to the wording of the federal regs is considered as something being paid you by the employer, as in 'wages.' But we are doing nothing here but splitting hairs. Lets just say that yes, the guy should've told them all about his pension, and he may be slightly overpaid since he received both for a time without a reduction based on the pension, and they'll take care of it and tell him how to fix it.

If, as in Colorado, they require you to submit three job searches a week, they do NOT make any distinction between people who are receiving Social Security retirement income and anyone else. Three works searches a week, and they don't "pick at" or have different requirements for job searches for a Social security receiving retiree any more than they do everyone else, unless that particular retiree is one of the people they are doing a benefit accuracy measurement audit on and then they check everything to death and to pieces. But if they want to, they have the right to do it to any claimant, can require anybody at any time to verify any aspect of their claim.

There has recently been something added to the unemployment system called profiling, which taps those statistically least likely to be reemployed quickly and subjects them to extra job searches and reporting requirements. These include people with very high incomes, short work histories, people who work for temp services only, people who are older and people who have lower educational levels, in other words, they profile people who are least likely to work again quickly. Retirees tend to fall into that group because of age and past earnings level, so it's not surprising that they often end up being extra checked.

But anyway, you were smart to wait, I believe, chyvan, to draw your unemployment out and then do your social security, because statistically, you're much better off and there's no better place to such get good returns for your money than to leave it in your social security account and postpone drawing it out as long as possible.

Collecting a pension or SS does not make you ineligible for UC ..but for at least the last 35 years there has need a Federal requirement that states offset UC by SS and employer pensions ..the offset math can and does vary a lot by state ...

Your state has an offset for SS it you take SS...but my understanding is you need not take SS ( My state holds pensions, not SS, against you even if you delay them but I don't know about your state .)
What I do know is that SS allows for a 1x do over to pay it back in and restart later ..at a higher rate..no interest/no penality. I do not know if this reverses out the CO math and or just how your personal math works..but Id sure do some digging if I were in your shoes. In general, for most of the examples where I crunched the math, it is well worth delaying SS.