How To File For Unemployment

Posted on January 16, 2012 by admin

Well, the sad day has finally come, the layoff at your plant has happened  and you are out of work. And the big question on your mind now is how to file for unemployment. With the unemployment rate at 8.6% and the real unemployment rate much higher, many people are of course asking the exact same question.

The good news is that with today’s easy access to almost everything online you can apply for your benefits either over the phone or online in many states. For those living in Pennsylvania in is an easy process to go online and file for your Unemployment PA benefits.

To file for your benefits in the State of Pennsylvania here;s what you do. Go to your Pennsylvania unemployment benefits website and click on File an Initial Claim in the upper right hand side of the page. You will then be taken to a page that asks your language either as English or Español and when you make that choice, you will then be prompted to fill in your Social Security Number (if you do not provide your SS number, you will not receive benefits). If you have ever filed a claim before or are opening up a claim again, you will be asked to input your pin number, if you are a new claimant, you can click on where it says File claim without PIN.

The next step is to read more information and get answers to common questions that many people ask. When you are sure you want to proceed, you can click on “If you want to go directly to the on-line application for UC benefits, click here.” which will then take you to yet another page that gives you full instructions and everything you need when filling out the online unemployment application. Finally, when you are ready, you can go down to the bottom of the page and click on “Click here to continue with Application” to obviously go to the online application. Once you finally fill out everything, you then click the Next button and proceed to finish the application.

That’s it and now you just wait until your claim and application is process by the State and you will start receiving your benefits as quickly as they can get them to you.

As we have emphasized before at Unemployment PA, it is in you best interest to file for your benefits as soon as possible because if you wait to file, you will not receive benefits for the time that you have not filed. In other words, if you wait for 2 or 3 weeks to file unemployment because you are bummed out, you will not receive benefits for those 2 to 3 weeks. So, now that you know how to file for unemployment, go out there and do it and collect your compensation.

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Real Unemployment Rate

Posted on January 6, 2012 by admin

A lot has been said lately about the current unemployment rate, but are the numbers we are hearing, the real unemployment rate? While it is being reported that the current rate is 8.6% as of the date of this post, this is a somewhat, or let’s just say very, misleading number. The reason this number indicating how many people are out of work in the United States is misleading is because of a few factors. Let’s look at them.

First, the rate the news media and people like President Barack Obama like to report is only a measure of the number of people currently receiving unemployment benefits. If you have filed for Unemployment PA (or any other state) benefits or are actually receiving them you are amongst the only individuals counted on the official rate. The people who are not counted are people who are working at a ridiculously low wage for their skill level, such as a rocket scientist working as a grocery store bag boy just to put food on the table. Even though people like this are employed, officially, they are not contributing to the workforce at a level that is anywhere equal to their ability.

Other people who are not counted on the unemployment rolls are people who have given up look for employment and are no longer receiving unemployment benefits. They don’t have a job and they are not looking for a job because they have either exhausted all leads or they just flat out don’t care any longer.

So, taking all these factors into consideration, what is the real unemployment rate? That real rate stands somewhere around 16%, almost double what the current rate being reported is. That paints a very different picture of how the economy is really going in the United States.

Fortunately, if you live in Pennsylvania, you can collect your Unemployment PA benefits for up to 99 weeks when you take into consideration state benefits and Federal benefits. That amounts to almost 2 years of compensation when you are out of work. There is some debate as to how good this really is for the economy because those benefits ultimately have to be paid for by somebody, but at least the first 26 weeks of benefits are paid for by the company that you have previously worked for.

Unfortunately, it is obvious that politicians and the media are exploiting actual unemployment benefits for either making themselves look good when they in fact, have done nothing but hurt the economy, or in the case of the media, they are trying to make you think better of the President than what has actually happened.

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Unemployment PA

Posted on January 5, 2012 by admin

With the current Unemployment PA situation, many people are out of work and wanting to know how to file for unemployment, how long they can collect it and how much their payments will be. Unemployed people, maybe like you, are also looking for jobs and we have some information on how to find them.

Obviously, one of the biggest concerns someone has when they lose their job is if they can qualify for unemployment benefits. In most cases you can qualify, but there are a few exceptions. With the way the economy has been since around mid to late 2008 and up to now, it is very common for businesses large and small to let people go. In these kind of cases, you absolutely do qualify to receive unemployment checks as long as you have been with your the company that laid you off for at least 16 weeks prior to losing your job.

Of course two of the biggest factors that make people ineligible for unemployment compensation in the state of Pennsylvania, or just about any state for that matter, is if you quit your job (unless you have a very good reason, and that is determined at a hearing) or if you are fired from your job except in very limited circumstances.

Other factors that do qualify you in PA to collect payments are you have to fill out an application, you must have collected at least $50 a week for the minimum of 16 weeks of employment, you must be registered at the Pennsylvania CareerLink website or in person (this shows that you are at least trying to find a job), and you need to be available and able to work at a job that may not closely fit your skill level, but it will be suitable.

To look for a job and find employment, you can do a search at the Pennsylvania CareerLink web site that has all kinds of skilled and non skilled jobs available. There are more than 20 different categories of jobs available to search through and pages and pages of jobs listed under each category. Another great place to find a job if you are unemployed is at any of the several Pennsylvania Craigslist sites. Just do a search for Craigslist Pennsylvania and go to the jobs section for the city you live closest to and you will probably thousands of jobs listed there. Yes, the economy is bad, but there are plenty of companies looking to hire all kinds of people for all kinds of jobs.

Finally, I almost forgot to mention the amount of time you are eligible to collect compensation the the state of Pennsylvania. Normally are able to collect up to 26 weeks of unemployment, but with recently mandated federal emergency unemployment compensation, you can collect up to an additional 53 weeks of benefits for a total of 99 weeks. That’s almost 2 years worth of benefits and that should be more than adequate for most people.

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