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Reemployment Insurance - Minnesota

Minnesota provides Reemployment Insurance (RI) benefits to provide temporary income to individuals looking for new jobs or awaiting recall to their regular jobs. The program used to be called Unemployment Insurance, the name it is known by in most states. The benefits for this program come from employer taxes. No deductions are taken from workers' wages to pay for these benefits. To be eligible, you must be able to work, available for work and looking for a job.

Eligibility

Who can file: This program covers most people who have worked in Minnesota for private employers or state and local governments. It does not cover railroad and self-employed workers. To find out if you qualify for an account, you must complete an application. You do not have to live in Minnesota to file.

Application

When to file: Call for an application in the same week you lose your job or your hours of work are reduced. Waiting to file could cause you to lose benefits. Accounts become effective Sunday of the calendar week in which you return the completed form. Benefits cannot be paid for any weeks you were out of work before the week your account begins.

Call to reopen your existing account if you returned to work after filing your initial account and lost that job or your hours of work are reduced. Your account becomes active the Sunday of the calendar week in which you reopened the account.

Application Processing

Notices are sent to the employers listed on wage files and the employers you list on your application. Your account may also include wages from employment in another state, the federal government, or military service.

Benefit Amount Notice: Shortly after filing your application, you will be mailed a Determination of Reemployment Insurance Account. The notice lists the employers you worked for during the Base Period and the wages reported by your employers. It also shows whether you were paid enough wages to qualify for an account and, if so, your weekly benefit amount and maximum benefit amount.

Base Period: This is a one-year period of time used to set up your account. It is made up of the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before the effective date of your account. A calendar quarter is a three-month time period. The total amount of wages paid to you in this base period determines how much money you will have in your account.

Wage Requirements: A benefit amount is calculated if you have all of the following in your base period:

·      Wages in two or more calendar quarters.

·      Wages of at least $1,000 in one calendar quarter.

·      Total base period wages of at least 1 1/4 (1.25) times the wages paid in the highest quarter.

Benefits

Weekly and Maximum Benefit Amounts: State law sets a maximum weekly amount which can change from year to year. For claims effective August 2, 1998 or later, your weekly benefit amount will be the higher of either:

·      1/26th of your high quarter wage credits up to a maximum of $331, or:

·      1/104th of your total base period wages to a maximum of $386.

Your maximum benefit amount is either 26 times your weekly benefit amount or 1/3 of your total base period wages, whichever is less.

Benefit Year: The benefit year (52 weeks), is the time period during which you can claim and be paid the maximum amount in your account. It begins when you file a claim. You cannot file a new account until after this benefit year ends even if your benefits are exhausted.

Money Left in Your Account: Your account will stop at the end of the benefit year, whether or not you have money left in it. This money cannot be carried over into another new account.

Payments

Filing Claims Every Two Weeks: RI benefits are not paid automatically. To be paid, you must certify for benefits every two weeks. A week starts on Sunday and ends at midnight on Saturday. You must file for each two-week period after the two weeks have ended.

Once you qualify for a RI account, you can expect to receive your first payment sometime in the third week. This will be the case only if there is no ineligibility or disqualification and the weeks are claimed on time.

Waiting Week: The waiting week is the first week in your benefit year that you are eligible to receive benefits. The waiting week, however, is never paid. To get credit for the waiting week, you must claim it and meet all weekly eligibility requirements. Your Statement of Account will tell you when you have served the waiting week.

Payment Reduction from Working

Whenever you work for an employer (full time, part time or temporary) or in self-employment, you must report those gross earnings when you claim benefits. Earnings include wages, tips, salary, commission, payment in cash, rent credit, goods, services or work to repay a debt. You must report such earnings in the week you performed the work, whether or not you have been paid. To figure your gross weekly earnings, take the number of hours you worked in a week (Sunday though Saturday) for an employer or for yourself and multiply it by your hourly wage rate.

Earnings are deducted in the following way:

·      If your total gross earnings are equal to or greater than your weekly benefit amount for any week you claim, no RI benefits are paid for that week.

·      If your total gross earnings are less than your weekly benefit amount for any week you claim, then the first $50 or 25 percent of your total earnings, whichever is more, is not deducted from your weekly benefit amount. The remainder of your earnings is deducted 100 percent.

Effective August 2, 1998, you are not eligible for benefits if you work for an employer or in self-employment 32 hours or more in a week even if your gross weekly earnings are less than your weekly benefit amount.

Payment Reduction from Other Income

There are some types of income that will be deducted from your benefit payment. If you have applied for or are receiving any of the following types of income, you must report it on your application form and on the bi-weekly certification.

Disability Pay - 100 percent deducted if under an insurance policy or fund set up and paid for by the employer.

Holiday Pay - the first $50 or 25 percent of the gross amount (before taxes), whichever is more, is not deducted. The remainder is deducted 100 percent.

Pension from a Base Period Employer - 100 percent deducted if the employer contributed to the pension fund.

Severance Pay and Wages in Lieu of Notice - 100 percent deducted. The first four weeks of severance may be assigned to weeks you claim; then one-half the total of additional weeks may affect more weeks of benefits. Severance pay is assigned immediately following your last day of work.

Social Security Retirement or Disability Benefits - 50 percent of your monthly award (based on your own earnings) is deducted. Supplemental Security Income and survivor's benefits are not deducted.

Vacation Pay - 100 percent deducted in certain situations.

Workers' Compensation for Loss of Wages - 100 percent deducted.

If you are receiving unemployment benefits from another state or the railroad, you must report these payments.

The following types of income are not deducted:

·      Investment income (including personal IRAs).

·      Jury duty.

·      Military wages under $200 per week.

·      Rental income (from property you own).

·      Spousal Support.

·      Volunteer firefighter or ambulance driver payments.

·      Bonus payments.

Meeting Weekly Eligibility

To receive Reemployment Insurance benefits, you must meet the following basic eligibility requirements every week you claim:

Able to Work: You must be physically and mentally able to work. If you are sick, injured or unable to work, you are not eligible for benefits. You are required to report any medical condition that prevents you from working, accepting work or looking for work. You may be asked to provide a doctor's statement to verify your ability to work.

Available for Work: You must be ready to report for work if a suitable full-time job is offered to you. You risk losing benefits if you are incarcerated, limit the hours you will work, the wage you will accept, the type of work you will do or the distance you will travel to a job based on personal reasons or circumstances. Being available for work includes having transportation and necessary family care arrangements.

Seeking Work: You must actively look for full-time employment even if you have a part-time job. "Actively seeking" means making a serious effort to find employment in every week you claim benefits. The following activities satisfy the weekly job search requirement:

·      Visiting an employer's place of business to fill out a job application.

·      Mailing resumes in response to employer ads or job leads.

·      Telephoning employers to arrange for job interviews.

·      Attending job search skills classes, workshops, job clubs or other related job hunting activities.

·      Networking in your occupational field and industry.

·      Conducting searches using Internet job banks and bulletin boards as well as professional/trade publications.

·      Researching companies in your field of work and exploring current labor market conditions.

·      Maintaining contact with professional organizations.

You will not be required to make employer contacts if you are on a temporary layoff with a return-to-work date within 30 days, have a confirmed job offer to begin work within thirty days, or you are in approved training. A union member meets the work search requirement by remaining in good standing with the restricted trade union.

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