Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency has fully entered the 21st century and created its own online channel. The UIA is trying to use the power of the internet and video to educate workers and employers about the services offered by the agency.

Instead of using the popular YouTube video platform, Michigan UIA included a section in its website for webcasts where workers can view or download the instructional video they need.

You don’t need a special program to view these videos. The Michigan UIA website is powered by Mediasite, which provides an inbuilt video viewer.

These webcasts provide help in a variety of subjects, such as news related to unemployment in Michigan, resources available to displaced workers, how to file for unemployment benefits and what payment options workers can chose from.

For instance, a recent webcast provides a report on the changes to the Michigan Unemployment Security Act brought on by the Public Act 269 enacted on December 19, 2011.

If you are a Michigan worker, I recommend you view this webcast. It provides important information about how this new law affects the payment of benefits to unemployed workers in Michigan. If you haven’t got the 16 minutes it takes to view this video, here is summary of the main points.

- Unemployed workers who were not working full-time will see their benefits reduced by 40 cents for every $1 earned in a week. This is actually good news. Previously the reduction was of 50 cents.

- Unemployed workers who were not working full-time cannot receive in a week more than 1.6 times the weekly benefit amount. Previously the limit had been 1.5 times.

- Severance pay will no longer be excluded from wages for unemployment benefits qualifying purposes. This will help borderline cases that would otherwise not qualify for benefits.

- Workers receiving benefits must, starting from January 1, 2013, carry out a systematic and sustained search for work every week they file a claim for benefits. This search can be audited by reporting to MARVIN, by mail or by reporting directly to an UIA office.

- Workers who are unavailable for work do not qualify for benefits. The new rules define a worker as unavailable if they do not update the contact information of a chargeable employer, does not respond within 14 days to a mailed notice or if mail is returned to the UIA as undeliverable or the claimant telephone number on record is no longer the claimant’s number.

Taxes are one of those constants of life, on par with death, toast always falling on the buttered side and other unalterable axioms. This holds true even when you are receiving unemployment benefits. The only silver lining to this sad fact is that Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency makes declaring your taxes as painless as possible by allowing you to download your 2011 1099-G statements online.

1099-G taxes

If you are new to unemployment or haven’t had to file your own taxes before, you might be new to 1099-G statements. 1099-G statements provide unemployed workers with the total taxable unemployment compensation they have received during the previous year. These statements also include a report of any state and federal income tax deductions withheld during the same tax year. Notice however that withholding taxes from your unemployment benefits is optional and you must request the unemployment insurance agency, if you want your taxes deducted from each payment. If you wish to view your 1099-G statements you must visit the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency and click on the link for 1099 forms. 

If you are more of a snail mail person, don’t worry. The Michigan UIA will also sell a hard copy of the 1099-G statement to all workers who received benefits by the end of January. Remember the IRS will also receive copies of your 1099-G statements and will expect an accounting of any differences between your tax forms and your 1099-G statements.

1099-G Issues

The 1099-G statements provide a total of taxable income and withheld taxes, but it does not include any payments to fulfill a court order or to satisfy an unemployment compensation overpayment bill. If this is the case the total income registered in the 1099-G may not reflect the income you actually received. Contact the Internal Revenue Service if you are in this situation and ask them to explain how you this affects you.

Other Services

The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency offers several other online services to unemployed workers and employers through its website. For instance, if you wish to view your unemployment compensation history, file for a new claim, certify your benefits through MARVIN or solve a problem through Michigan’s UIA Virtual Problem Resolution forum, you can do it directly from the UIA website.

Specially designed tutorials are available at Michigan’s UIA website under the “Webcasts” tab for those who are struggling with the claiming and filing process of their benefits and taxes. However, if you have any questions, please feel free to leave us a message and we will publish an answer in the blog or send you a link of an article that has already dealt with the same topic.

The estate of Michigan provides unemployment compensation to those who meet the requirements. You may receive benefits for a minimum of 14 weeks and up to a maximum of 26 weeks unless the unemployment

Compensation benefit is based on family benefits. If this is your situation payments can not be received for more than 7 weeks. The actual amount that you can receive is not more than $362 and not less than $81. First you must make sure that you are eligible for benefits and the first thing to check is your wage record during the base period. If you are not sure what that is, don´t worry it is not difficult to discover your base period. Just look back to the last 5 calendar quarters before you claim for unemployment benefits. The first four of these is considered to be your base period and the quarter when you earned your highest wages is the one which decides the weekly amount that you will receive. If for some reason you find that you don´t qualify on that basis there is another way you could qualify for benefits. This is by counting the four calendar quarters immediately before you file your claim.

The alternative base period could be used to qualify you for benefits – this is called The Alternative Earnings Qualifier and you can be accepted on that basis if you had earned wages in at least two quarters and the total amount earned was above $13,564.60. It may be your case that you apply again for benefits less than six calendar quarters after your last benefit year finished.

The benefit year is 52 consecutive weeks starting when you file for benefits. If you subsequently worked before the present benefit year began and your employer paid not less than 5 times the amount you were receiving during your previous benefit year, you can be accepted as qualifying for benefits. At this moment you qualify financially for benefits – however it is also required that you are ready and willing to work if a suitable job is offered and you should be actively looking for employment.

The weekly amount you receive in benefit payments can include those who depend on you for example a spouse (husband or wife) or a child. The amount for each dependant is $6 and as many as 5 dependents may be added. As we said before, the earnings you received in your high quarter are your basis for the amount you will get each week as benefits.

To make the calculation you just multiply this high quarter amount by 4.1% (0.041) and round it down to the nearest dollar. Add to the total the amount you are due for dependents and that will be your weekly benefit amount. If you would like to calculate the number of weeks that you can claim benefits you can do so by multiplying you total base period earnings by 40% (0.4) and dividing this total by the Weekly Benefit Amount.

This series of articles provides practical information on the programs available to unemployed households in the state of Michigan. Our previous article focused on programs that offered information and access to resources offered by other agencies. This article highlights programs offered directly by the government and private agencies that promote them.

Job Assistance

The state of Michigan has two main job assistance programs: Michigan Works! and Talent Bank Help Line. The Michigan Works! program is an employment database which links workers and employers and provides workers with access to educational and training programs. This includes assistance with preparing resumes, recommendation letters and to prepare for job interviews.

The Talent Bank Help line is also managed by Michigan Works! but allows citizens to access job assistance services over the phone instead of the internet.  To access this program call 1-888-253-6855 or visit www.michworks.com.

Unemployment Insurance Agency

The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency is Michigan’s primary source of financial assistance for unemployed workers. However, this service is not for everyone. You must meet financial and legal requirements to qualify for unemployment benefits. For instance, to qualify for benefits you must have received a minimum amount of income set by the Unemployment Insurance Agency, have lost your job due to no fault of your own and be willing and able to work.

Utility Assistance Programs

The state of Michigan offers low-income citizens help with their utility bills through four main programs: Consumers Energy (1-800-477-5050), DTE Energy (1-800-477-4747), SEMCO Energy (1-800-624-2019) and the Michigan Energy Assistance Directory. The Michigan Energy Assistance Directory  is an online directory which offers information on both private and public energy assistance programs. Visit www.dleg.state.mi.us/mpsc/winterwise/energy_assistance.htm for more information.

The services offered by these programs include financial assistance to cover energy expenses, grants and low-cost loans for home improvements to save on energy consumption, such as insulation, solar and wind energy. Other programs allow Michigan workers to average out their energy bills throughout the year as a type of saving plan for the higher energy costs of the winter months.

These programs are not available to everyone. You must meet certain financial requirements, such as your income level, and the assets available to you. Visit the official websites of these programs (links above) and find out how much you could get in help for you and your family.

Are you in a situation where working is costing you money? Where having a job is actually maybe worse than not having one at all? This seems to be the situation of one of our readers’ son. We received the question below from Tammy Nelson and thought it was such a good question we should publish the answer for others in similar situations to read also.

I just have a question. My son receives unemployment but also has a job. He worked 2 jobs and lost 1, that’s why he receives unemployment. His job has been scheduling him only 1 day a week and it’s hurting him financially. Can he get denied his unemployment if he quits that other job? Also, what if he gets a part time job in another state, can he transfer his unemployment benefits, or how does that work?

Although we would need more information on the specific circumstances of Tammy’s son, the quick answer is he can get denied unemployment benefits if he quits his job. The Michigan unemployment insurance program is for workers who lose their job out of no fault of their own and quitting because you feel you will get more money from unemployment benefits qualifies as “your fault”. However, this doesn’t mean Tammy’s son does not have options.

First, you could apply for unemployment benefits based on the loss of your first job. Of course, you will need to meet the eligibility requirements set by the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency. These include financial and legal requirements such as the reason you left your first job and how much income you earned during your base period. Click here for more information.

Second, you can ask your current employer to join the state shared work program. This is a program for companies who are forced to reduce the work hours they can offer their employees. From what you mentioned in your comment, this seems to be what is happening in this case. The employer can then apply for financial assistance for their workers and bring their wages to the equivalent of unemployment benefits.

About the part time job in another state, the same rules apply as if he worked in the same state. If he is on unemployment benefits and is working, he will need to declare his income. Each unemployed worker on benefits has an amount of income he can make while on benefits without any deductions taking place, but whatever you make over this amount is deducted from your benefits dollar for dollar.

Unemployment benefits in the State of Michigan are not for all workers who lose their jobs. It is not even for all workers who lose their jobs due to no fault of their own, although that is a qualifying requirement. There are financial requirements besides the legal requirements that restrict unemployment benefits to workers who have been fired, resign or who do not wish to actively search for work. This article will look at these financial requirements as they stand in 2011. These requirements change on a regular basis, so it is important to have the latest information.

Standard Base Period

This is the period of time used to assess the financial requirements of the unemployment program. It includes the first four quarters of the last five completed quarters. Attention must be paid to include only completed quarters. A year’s quarters are January to March, April to June, July to September and October to December. For example, if you lose your job in August, the first quarter of the five used to measure your standard base period is April to June.

Alternate Base Period

Michigan’s unemployment insurance program can choose to apply an alternative base period for workers who do not qualify under the standard base period. This alternative period includes the four most recent completed quarters. Workers who have received higher wages in their last quarter will benefit from this alternative base period, which will either allow them to qualify for benefits or even increase the payment they would receive under the standard base period.

Qualifying Requirements

There are two main financial qualifying requirements: the total income earned during the base period (standard or alternative, whichever is applied) and the income in the highest earning quarter.

To qualify for benefits the wages in the highest earning quarter of a worker must amount to at least $2,871 and the total wages during the entire base period must be at least $4,306.50. This total amount is calculated by multiplying the minimum amount of the highest earning quarter by 1.5.

Alternate Financial Requirements

There are also alternative financial requirements for workers who do not qualify under the standard requirements. Under these requirements, workers must have earned wages in at least two of the quarters in their base period and the total income during the base period must be at least 20 times the average weekly wage of the State of Michigan. In 2011 that amounts to 20 times $823.35, or $16,467. This alternative earnings qualifier does not really help workers to qualify for benefits.

The rules that govern the extended benefits program are designed to allow access to it only to states which have a high-unemployment rate. However, that is only part of it. As we mentioned in our previous post, the rule states the insured unemployment rate must be 20 percent higher during the current 13-week average than the equivalent period of the last two years. This means the program is set to only work for states which have a high-unemployment rate that is also getting worse through time. If a state’s insured unemployment is high but not any worse than previous years it will, under this rule, lose its right to extended benefits.

Fortunately for states like Michigan, which has had a high-unemployment rate for over three years and only seen modest improvements, there are alternative rules the state legislature can apply if it wishes. This article will look at the two alternatives open to states to stretch their eligibility for extended benefits.

Alternative Automatic Trigger

Instead of the insured unemployment rate, IUR, states can opt for a different automatic trigger for extended benefits. The alternative trigger also uses the insured unemployment rate but the trigger point is set at 6 percent not 5 percent. However, eligibility is not linked to the unemployment rate worsening, as long as the unemployment rate is 6 percent or higher the state qualifies for extended benefits.

Alternative Option

In addition to the two automatic triggers available to states there is an alternative method that uses a different type of unemployment rate to determine eligibility: the total unemployment rate, or TUR. This option must be chosen by the Michigan legislature before it can be used to determine eligibility. Some states have chosen not to opt in to this alternative trigger method while others, such as Michigan and South Carolina, have already chosen it.

This trigger determines any state with a total unemployment rate of 6.5 percent or higher with at least 10 percent higher unemployment rate than the previous 2 years qualifies for 13 weeks of extended benefits. The same rule determines that states with an 8 percent total unemployment rate which is 10 percent higher than the two previous years may also qualify for an extra seven weeks, which brings the the total to 20 week of extended benefits. 

This program is funded as a 50-50 partnership between the federal and local state governments. Some states such as North Carolina have decided not to choose option 2, while others, such as Michigan, have chosen to extend their eligibility to extended benefits.

Extended Benefits are the last resort for unemployed workers who cannot find employment after exhausting state unemployment insurance and emergency unemployment compensation. It provides Michigan workers with an extra 20 weeks of financial assistance before all unemployment benefits are terminated.

However, not all states have access to this federal program. What determines if a state is eligible for extended unemployment benefits? Can a state lose its right to extended benefits once it has started receiving payments? Is there anything the state government can do to continue payments? This series of two articles will deal with these and other questions by providing a brief summary on the the extended benefits and how this program is managed in the state of Michigan.

When are extended benefits granted?

Extended benefits are not a permanent fixture of the federal unemployment insurance program. The federal unemployment insurance focuses on the state-federal unemployment insurance program which offers workers 20 to 26 weeks of benefits, depending on the state. In Michigan it is 26 weeks.

However, in periods of high-unemployment the federal government funds extra programs to help long-term unemployed workers. These programs are the emergency unemployment compensation, EUC, program and the extended benefits, EB, program. The first program to kick in is the extended unemployment benefits. Extended benefits is a secondary program, which as with the extended unemployment benefits is a voluntary program states can opt-in or opt-out of.

There are two formats to the extended benefits program. The basic format is made up of 13 weeks of additional benefits for states with especially high unemployment rates. States also have the option of starting a voluntary program in tandem with the extended benefits, which extends the program by seven additional weeks, bringing the maximum weeks available to 20 weeks. The State of Michigan enacted legislation in April 13, 2009 allowing workers in Michigan to benefit from 20 weeks of extended benefits—the maximum allowed by employment law.

Workers receiving extended benefits receive the same weekly amount they received when they were in the state unemployment insurance program. The 20 weeks available to Michigan workers represents 80 percent of the total unemployment benefits available under the state unemployment program. The total amount of weeks available between the state UI program, the emergency unemployment compensation program and the extended benefits program is 99 weeks.

However, we have still not fully answered the question we began our article with: what triggers the extended benefits program? This we will discuss in the second and last article of this series on the extended benefits, EB, program

When you think of unemployment benefits, you automatically think about the financial assistance provided every week through the Michigan UI program. However, this is only one of the services available to Michigan unemployed workers. This article will focus on some of the most useful and generous services unemployed workers can apply for. We also provide contact details and information on how to apply for each of these programs.

General Services Aid

This includes the main programs people associate with unemployment services. These include Cash Assistance for low-income and needy families, medical services, food assistance and emergency services. These programs are all sponsored by the Department of Human Services and you can find out more information by visiting their official website (click here).

If you are interested in the Food Stamps program you can contact directly by calling 1-800-481-4989.

Health and Insurance Aid

One of the biggest perks of being employed (besides getting a wage) is to be part of a health insurance program. Self-employed and unemployed workers generally have to pay much higher premiums than workers who are part of a medical program. The State of Michigan offers unemployed workers health programs such as Medicaid Help Line (1-800-642-3195), Free Clinics (1-888-877-6769 or www.FCOMI.org) and the Michigan Prescription Drug Discount Card.

Job Assistance

Need help finding a job? Two of Michigan’s UIA biggest departments: Michigan Works! and Talent Bank Help Line are designed to help you find a new job.

Foreclosure Protection

Often losing your work can affect your ability to meet your mortgage payments, which can lead to foreclosure. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) provides counseling and practical assistance to avoid this. This program helps homeowners who have lost their job organize their finances and join government sponsored programs designed to provide temporary assistance to cover mortgage payments while searching for work.

Utility Budget Help

Are you struggling to pay your utility bills? Is there a possibility your service might get cut off? If this is a problem you are going through, you should contact the Consumers Energy (1-800-477-5050), the DTE Energy (1-800-477-4747) or SEMCO Energy (1-800-624-2019) and ask for assistance. They can provide emergency assistance so your heating, water and electricity services are not disconnected.

These are only a small sample of the social programs available to unemployed and underemployed workers in Michigan. If you have any questions on the programs offered by Michigan UIA, please leave a comment below and our team of researchers will be happy to reply any question you may have.

Being your own boss isn’t always the dream job it portrayed as. Although setting your own hours and the satisfaction of knowing all your work is going towards your business are nice perks, self employment is not without its drawbacks. For instance, you must pay your own social security, Medicare and you do not receive unemployment benefits. However, it is possible you consider yourself self-employed and still be eligible for unemployment insurance in Michigan. How is this possible?

Let’s start by stating what the Michigan Employment Security Act has to say about unemployment insurance and self-employed workers. For starters, the law says that only insured employees of registered employers in Michigan are eligible for UI benefits. This disqualifies self-employed workers although it does include the employees of self-employed workers. However, the Michigan Employment Security Act defines self-employment by the type of relationship between employer and employee not by the agreement or understanding between two parties. What does this mean? Well, even if you consider yourself self-employed and your have a written agreement to work as a contractor for another individual or company, you are an employee if you meet the definition of an employee as set by the Michigan Employment Security Act.

For example, if you work as a plumbing contractor and invoice a client as a self-employed contractor but use the main contractor’s materials and tools, follow the work schedule set by the main company and barely work for any other clients, you may be considered an employee and therefore deserve to receive unemployment benefits if you lose your job or contract.

So what are the guidelines that determine your status as an employee or self-employed worker? There are several factors the Michigan UIA takes into account when assessing the status of a self employed worker. For example, the UIA may ask the following questions to determine if an employee is being treated as a self-employed worker.

- Is the work carried out by the self-employed worker an integral part of the work generally performed by the main contractor?

- Does the “self-employed” worker depend entirely on the payment (or wages) of a single client?

- What level of control does the self-employed worker have while working? Can he, or she, hire or fire his own workers?

- Does the self-employed worker advertise his or her services elsewhere to the public?

- Does the employee (or self-employed worker) pay for his own materials and tools or does he rely on the materials provided by an employer?

The answer to these questions and the evidence presented by the employer and the employee will determine what status a worker is granted.