Can a person pay the bills on unemployment?

[CoffeeCat]

I'm wondering if anyone knows how unemployment benefits are calculated?

Do you get a certain percentage of your previous salary?

Is it possible to live on unemployment? When you become unemployed, you have to fork
over the bucks for your own healthcare--which was previously paid for. That's $800
per month. A good chunk of change.

I'm worried about friends who have recently lost jobs, and also for our family. My
husband was recently asked to take a $1,000 per month paycut, and we're anticipating
that the company might tank or have further layoffs.

Scared.

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. Unemployment is an insurance payout, based on how much was paid in premiums

More details can be found in the Wikipedia entry for Unemployment benefits # United States.

[recoveringrepublican]

2. Is their house paid off? No way could I have paid rent on what I got alone.

I'm married, and my working is really just for "extras", so the unemployment helped, but we weren't going to lose our home over it. But if I was the only income earner for the household? There is no way, unless I had substantial savings, that I could have done it all on unemployment. I take that back, if I had no kids, and rented somebody's room above their garage or in their house for $300/month, yeah I could have done it. But when you add kids (meaning that room above the garage isn't going to cut it) and all of life's crap no way. Rent down here is, at minimum, $700 (I would think average would be at least $900), so how does one pay for food, utilities, transportation to get to interviews, etc. I guess it depends if you were living pay check to pay check to begin with. I'm in FL, west of Tampa.

[pinqy]

3. It's by state, but as an example

In Virgina it's based on your 2 highest quarters of earnings. Add those, divide by 26 (to get the weekly number) and the weekly benefits are approx 52% of that, with a minimum of $54/wk and a max of $363/wk.

No, that's probably not enough to live off of, but that's kind of the point. If UI was enough so that you didn't need to get a job as soon as possible, fewer people would bother looking.

[democraticinsurgent]

4. $390 per week...

that's what Indiana's unemployment pays out at the top end, which works out to about $20k per year after taxes. Of course, you can only get 6 months worth of checks, unless Congress extends it.

So...can you live on $390 per month? All depends on what your expenses are, but if you do have $800 in monthly healthcare, that leaves less than $800 for everything else, including rent/mortgage, food, utilities, fuel, etc.

Not a good formula for most of us.

[leftofthedial]

5. most people can not sustain their former standard of living on unemployment,

although many people try, using credit cards or other deficit spending to keep up the facade.

In a disintegrating job market, the real problem comes when unemployment runs out.

[Coyote_Bandit]

6. When I was laid off

I got the highest payout and it was about $200 per week.

[cherokeeprogressive]

7. 450 per week is max in CA, no matter how much you earned. 1800/month n/t

[havocmom]

8. heard $290 max in AZ.

It will not cover rent & utilities. Food and expenses to get you around to hunt for a new job? Fuggitaboutit!

[Greyhound]

15. As with most things, AZ is near the bottom. n/t

[havocmom]

20. Not near the bottom for rents, that's for sure

If supply and demand sets prices, and people can't pay rents, shouldn't rents be going down? Not in Tucson!

[Greyhound]

22. That's interesting, my sister lives north of Phoenix and she is telling me that

Mc Mansions can be had all over the valley for around $1000 p/mo. and are still vacant.

Something is going to have to break loose soon.

[havocmom]

24. big house prices going down, apartment rents still rising

The worker class and poor still holding up the upper crust

[Greyhound]

26. The Republik way.

I'm very happy I got out of there.

[Blue Diadem]

9. Check out your state's unemployment website.

We have different amounts in Ohio, depending on number of dependents and how much your income had been. We also have a waiting week before unemployment begins paying. It's different in other states, I know Ohio is one of the few that still has a waiting week.

[wartrace]

10. I'm about to find out myself in May!

If you have a house payment or rent there is NO WAY you could do it here in Tennessee. The maximum benefit is 285 dollars a week. I am single with no children (except for eight "fur babies") and it will be a struggle for me to maintain myself. My home is paid for, no other bills. I ordered an antenna and will be dropping my direct TV bill (85 dollars a month). I decided I must give up smoking so I am starting on "e-cigarettes" as soon as they arrive. Quitting will save me over 200 a month. My tax on the house is only 350 a year, auto insurance is only 285 a year. I have already adjusted my electric usage and will work to keep my bill under 100 a month despite the increase they imposed on us recently. I will not be driving except once a week to the store & to job interviews (if I get any). I don't usually eat lunch on my days off so I will save that expense.
I have been able to save 1000 a month for the past eight months after I paid off all my debts so that money will not be missed. I estimate I will have a total of 120 dollars a week to purchase food/dog & cat food plus save for the veterinarian visits.

I believe I can survive on unemployment but I am one of the few that are fortunate enough to do it. It won't be fun & I will sacrifice to do it.

[Crabby Appleton]

11. Varies by state and in Ohio, number of dependants

and your previous average wage

http://jfs.ohio.gov/unemp_comp_faq/faq_elig_definitions4.stm#weekly_benefit_amount

[Kahuna]

12. $560 in NJ. I guess I'm pretty lucky. I can pay my rent and essentials. nt

[ellenfl]

13. many years ago when i collected unemployment compensation,

i didn't even have enough to pay the $12 for $72 worth of food stamps. i lived on grilled cheese sandwiches and canned veggies. forget about healthcare! not only does unemployment not pay you enough to live on, but raygan changed the laws to assess income tax on those benefits. pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, indeed.

(no, i'm not a slacker . . . i worked in banking back when all the mergers were happening. people in loan operations always got laid off.)

fortunately, my job lapses were only for about 5 weeks each time but i doubt i could have the same experience today.

ellen fl

[customerserviceguy]

19. To be fair

unemployment comp started to be taxable during the Carter Administration. But people could still earn decent money before their UC was taxed. During the middle of the recession, Bob Dole's tax writing committee tightened the income levels, brought them down to $18K for a married couple, and $12K for a single person. Some years later, it all became taxable.

We should add to the stimulus bill provisions that go retroactive to January, 2008, and make UC nontaxable. That would deliver heavy refunds to the areas hardest hit by unemployment.

[Greyhound]

14. It depends on which state you live in.

Every state has it's own way to calculate and the maximum benefit. If you live in a red state you are probably more screwed than if yo live in a blue one. most states are broke and many are denying claims, so be prepared to have to appeal and go to a hearing.

[libertypirate]

16. Nope, at least not where I live.

$450/week is the max payout in CA. We just moved in with my in-laws a couple of days ago because we couldn't continue renting the house we were living in. We spent 2/3rds of savings trying to hang on but now here we are. I may go mad before it's all over. Cobra was $1600 so I had to let that go. For us, unemployment is only about 20% of my husband's previous salary. No way to live on that especially in the bay area.

edit: accidentally posted under my hubbie's name. I'm scorpiogirl posting

[slackmaster]

17. In 2004 it was enough to cover my mortgage, with about $400 extra

For things like food and utility bills.

[Kansas Wyatt]

18. If you cut back on everything and juggle bills....

You'll still go into the hole fairly quickly.

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

21. in some states, just barely.

My husband and i are unemployed (through no fault of our own, layoff and job elimination), and what is saving us is that we have no consumer debt, credit cards or auto loans.

At the beginning of this nightmare (in july), we had a savings account, but we have blown thru that.

We have cut our expenses to the bone, and we just might get by, assuming that a job that pays at least 75% of what we made opens up to us in the next 6 months.

If you are healthy, check out catastrophic health insurance plans. Our cobra was $800 month, so we replaced it with a plan that is $300 a month, but we are responsible for the first $4,000 of medical costs on an annual basis.

Best of luck to you, I would NEVER NEVER wish this on anyone, Having a plan is the best thing for you right now. Your state unemployment should have a web page that will explain and estimate your benefits should the unthinkable happen.

Try to stay positive, that is the hardest thing for me. Sometimes I get so down, I can't believe that at the age of 50 I am in this situation, all I did was go to work, pay taxes, save and not abuse credit, be involved with my community, vote democratic, and look where I am now. I really blame bush for this, when the price of gas went to 4.00, people just quit spending, and the downward spiral caught up with us. Sorry to ramble on, but sometimes it helps me to vent.

Best to you.

[Vinca]

23. Let's see. $800 a month and the average health insurance premium

for a family is $1200. The answer is no.

[hfojvt]

25. I still made my house payments for 5 months of unemployment

and I also bought a DVD player and $300 worth of genealogy books.

As for health insurance, you don't have to pay it. You simply become one of the uninsured. Some people freak out at the thought of that, but it's not that bad - UNLESS something serious happens to you. Even when my unemployment ended in August 2002 I still only had a part-time job and could not afford insurance. Not until they hired me full time, after bending over backwards to avoid it, in June 2004. Not until then, at age 42, did I have health insurance.

Ironically I was making about $205 a week in unemployment. When I finally found part-time work, my take home pay was a little bit less than that. I thought I was gonna have substitute teaching work too, but that never panned out.

[eridani]

28. Yes. An "insurance" plan based on the calculation that you won't get expensively sick--

--will work for 85% of the population. If we had national insurance, everyone would be required to pay for the canre of sick people on the grounds that (like having a fire) even though it probably won't happen to you it could happen to you. Private insurance screws that up by stealing health care dollars for profits and administrative nonsense.

[Lugnut]

27. It varies from state to state.

In PA you get about 50% of your normal weekly paycheck. It's better than nothing but that's about it.