My question involves unemployment benefits for the state of: California
I have gone back to work on a on-call and part-time basis and I want to make sure I am reporting my income correctly. I was told to report my total taxable federal gross income before deductions as well as any taxable self-employment income. That's fine.
However, my pay stub confuses me. I work for a place where there is an agreement between the union and the employer, but I'm not part of the collective bargaining unit because I am an hourly employee. About two years ago, I was forced to take a paycut while union employees had a choice between a paycut or a cut in a certain type of benefit.
So, on my paystubs, it still lists the original amount I used to get paid as my "gross pay" and then it lists my reduction in pay amount. The amount of the pay after the reduction is what's reported on my W-2 as my federal taxable gross. So, that's what I've been reporting as that's what the first rep I talked to said to report. I got confused because I was told by another EDD rep to report income before any deductions and the way the pay reduction is listed it looks like any other deduction.
It was a lot easier when we had the old paystubs because it listed your gross income right at the top in plain view. I think they do things this way because not everyone is getting a pay reduction, but if I had to show my paystubs to EDD, it would be hard to explain to them that I am not getting paid that amount.
I don't want to get in trouble with EDD because I'm a few dollars off each week with my income reporting and don't want to go through any penalty weeks. Luckily, I have been over-reporting anyway because I have been reporting my non-verifiable self-employment income on top of my W-2 income.
ETA: I know that my unemployment is based on the income after the pay reduction and is based on my federal gross income. I checked and double checked. I also checked my W-2 to make double sure that the income reported to the federal government is also after the pay reduction, too.

