How to Get Unemployment to Stop Withholding Benefits

Florida Unemployment is notoriously difficult to receive, it seems.

I was laid off from my job on July 16, 2015. The cause: Budgetary issues. They were a start up company, and did not have proper planning and financial allocations, so the funds ran out pretty swiftly. One month after I lost my job, they stopped paying employees (Yes, I know this for a fact from a former co-worker), and then a month later they folded.

I had applied for unemployment insurance immediately. They declined me because of when my employment started/ended. In other words, the cycle was wrong. Even though I had earned enough, THEIR cycle was off.

I had to wait until much, much later (somewhere around October) to be approved as eligible. But this didn't mean receiving. This meant I qualified as having earned enough (which I had, right from the start.) But now, they had a "Pending issue" on my account. Why? They needed to verify why I was let go.

I had said "Budgetary issues" and the fact that they'd stopped paying employees shortly after and went out of business speaks to the truth of my statement. So why have I still not been given unemployment?

I recently stopped putting in my job search attempts. Admittedly, I gave up more or less. I know, a mistake.

But I'd been faithfully putting them in, wasting my time and effort at this point.

I try to call, and there's no voice messaging...it's ALWAYS "with other people" so it hangs up on me. Every day, any time I call. NEVER an answer.

They've closed up the physical location, so the phone and the internet are the only ways to get to them...and they don't answer. What they say is, "We are still investigating the pending issue."

What do I do?

Where in Florida are you?

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Quoting myechta

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Florida Unemployment is notoriously difficult to receive, it seems.

I was laid off from my job on July 16, 2015. The cause: Budgetary issues. They were a start up company, and did not have proper planning and financial allocations, so the funds ran out pretty swiftly. One month after I lost my job, they stopped paying employees (Yes, I know this for a fact from a former co-worker), and then a month later they folded.
. Even though I had earned enough, THEIR cycle was off.

I had to wait until much, much later (somewhere around October) to be approved as eligible. But this didn't mean receiving. This meant I qualified as having earned enough (which I had, right from the start.) But now, they had a "Pending issue" on my account. Why? They needed to verify why I was let go.

I had said "Budgetary issues" and the fact that they'd stopped paying employees shortly after and went out of business speaks to the truth of my statement. So why have I still not been given unemployment?

I recently stopped putting in my job search attempts. Admittedly, I gave up more or less. I know, a mistake.

But I'd been faithfully putting them in, wasting my time and effort at this point.

I try to call, and there's no voice messaging...it's ALWAYS "with other people" so it hangs up on me. Every day, any time I call. NEVER an answer.

They've closed up the physical location, so the phone and the internet are the only ways to get to them...and they don't answer. What they say is, "We are still investigating the pending issue."

What do I do?

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From what I read, you have filed almost 25 weeks of weekly certifications since you were able to file a claim (due to monetary issues, you had to wait until you had enough money in covered quarters to set up a claim ) in October, correct? Have you made the bi-weekly certifications as directed for each week since then? Up to the time you became discouraged, I mean.

Have you done this on the internet? Has the system accepted your job searches? What I am getting at is does the system still allow you to make the bi-weekly certifications? I'm trying to verify if you have made those required job searches and submitted them as directed. There's not enough information here for us to really understand what has happened, except that apparently you filed a claim in October and have never heard anything else. Is this the case?

When is the last time you had actual contact with someone, received a written communication from them, etc.? Has it been since October? I know the Florida system is really screwy now, but hard to believe that you have let it go for six plus months with just some phone calls that didn't get through.

It is very difficult, and understandable that the lines are almost always busy and it is very hard to get hold of anyone. Did you receive ANY communication from them? Were you ever called in for job searches?

My only advice to you now is to attempt to make an end run around the system. If you are still unemployed, and you have made legitimate job seeking efforts all this time, and done the weekly certifications for benefits, you may still have a completed claim out there with some backpay due to you, (though if you had low or blank quarters to begin with, your claim may not have set up for the full number of weeks.)

But somehow, somewhere, you are going to have to talk to someone in the system. You have to find out the status of the claim, call it to someone's attention that there has been no action on the claim.

My advice would be to contact the commissioner's office. Call your state representatives and complain. Ask their office to connect you with someone in the LES system who can help you. Call your federal congressman's office and ask their people to get you a contact in the unemployment system to help you. Figure out how to find a number that is not in the call in system and get hold of some "U.I. technical" or U.I. appeals division.

It appears that somehow, the decision to approve or deny benefits did not get made within two or three weeks of the filing, as it "should" happen (in an ideal world.) If you are having too much trouble and cannot get through at all, your local legal services may be able to help you. That you then sat and waited so patiently for all these months seems odd, but that can't be changed now.

You need to find out where you are in the system and what has happened to that claim. You need to go onto the system and try to re-open your claim right away if it has been closed due to non certification for weeks, and be sure to certify for all the weeks in the claim if you are able to do so.

I can see where cbg is going with this. They have deliberately made it hard to find the numbers to reach the commissioner's office for LES (Labor and Employment Security) but it would be helpful if we can know your general location in Florida to see if we can come up with some numbers for you.

The current governor and his interpretation of business friendly state government and administration of unemployment benefits really stinks, but there are still some federal unemployment laws in place that have to be followed. They certainly don't make it easy for you, but you must be persistent to get what you are entitled to.

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Quoting myechta

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I was laid off from my job on July 16, 2015. The cause: Budgetary issues. They were a start up company, and did not have proper planning and financial allocations, so the funds ran out pretty swiftly.

I had applied for unemployment insurance immediately. They declined me because of when my employment started/ended. In other words, the cycle was wrong. Even though I had earned enough, THEIR cycle was off.

I had to wait until much, much later (somewhere around October) to be approved as eligible. But this didn't mean receiving. This meant I qualified as having earned enough (which I had, right from the start.) But now, they had a "Pending issue" on my account. Why? They needed to verify why I was let go.

What do I do?

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I think you might have a problem with the above. Prior to July 16 when you were terminated, did you have other employment? Did you quit a job to take this one? How long did you work there and how much did you earn?

http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/...onmonetary.pdf I know there's mistakes in here, but it's a quick and dirty way to see what the problem might be.

On page 5-3, FL has an "L" with a 5 for a footnote, and the the footnote says, "FL - quit must have been from temporary employer with the purpose of returning to work immediately when recalled by individual’s former permanent employing unit that temporarily terminated individual within the previous 6 calendar months;" which means that it's unlikely that your quit from your prior employment can be easily forgiven unless you work enough and earn enough on the new job and have a new qualifying separation.

On page 5-11, to have your quit of a previous job forgiven you'd have had to earn "17 x WBA2" (worse case senario would be $275 x 17 = $4675 from this most recent employer or any subsequent employment since a prior quit.) Also, as you look through the table that you can see that FL's 17 weeks is pretty steep in comparison to most any other state.

While continuing to contact a legislator, congressman, or UI person can produce results, if you didn't "purge" the disqualification from a prior quit, it would be a waste of your time to continue to try to make contact. If you didn't earn the 17 X WBA, it won't matter who you contact.

Try typing in the letters you received back in July and October. Could just be that you thought you weren't monetarily eligible, but it was really trying to tell you that you just didn't earn enough to have an earlier quit not count against you.

The logic is that you can't quit a perfectly good job, go work a week or two as Christmas help, get laid off, and then expect to collect UI. Since your post sounds like you didn't last long at this "start up," it could very well be that you didn't earn enough in a "purging" sense rather than you just didn't earn enough in your base period if that makes any sense to you.