I have been shocked by the number of times I contact an unemployed individual to offer them suitable work as a Frank’s temporary, only to have them decline the work. The reasons people give as an explanation for the refusal often signal that they may not have considered or understood some of the positive ways that “temping” can help them.
1. Temporary work of even a day or two in a week can supplement your unemployment benefits.
IDES allows you to earn up to half of your gross weekly benefit amount without reducing your benefit for that week by a single penny. For example, if your weekly benefit is $300, you may earn an additional $150 free and clear.
2. Temporary work could help to extend the weeks that you are receiving unemployment benefits.
When IDES notifies you that you are eligible for benefits, they give you a year-long period of eligibility during which you may claim benefits. They tell you the total benefit amount for which you’re eligible, as well as the weekly gross benefit amount you will receive. You’ll notice that dividing the total amount by the weekly benefit doesn’t equal 52!
Let’s say that your weekly benefit is $300. Let’s also say that you work a couple of days on a temporary assignment, earning $200. For that week, you will receive the $200 from the temporary agency. Of that, $150 is free and clear because it’s half of your IDES benefit. That means that you’ve earned $50 more than half of your benefit. So your IDES benefit for that week will be reduced by $50 ~ reduced dollar for dollar. So you’ll earn $200 from the agency + $250 from IDES = $450 total.
What happens to that $50 that was offset dollar for dollar? It stays in the account for possible future benefits. When you reach the end of 26 weeks, that $50 is still there as a payable benefit if you’re still within your benefit year and still qualified to receive benefits. It doesn’t go away in the long-term, even if it is discounted in the short-term.
3. Temporary work could help you qualify for a 2nd benefit year under Section 607B.
If you are unemployed for a long period, your need for benefits may go beyond the one-year time frame of your initial claim. You claim your original 26 weeks plus Tier 1 of the federal EUC within that first calendar year. Then IDES may evaluate whether you transition to Tier 2 of the federal emergency benefits or qualify for a new state benefit year (which offers more weeks than Tier 2).
Section 607B is the law that applies to the second benefit year. You must have performed “bona fide work” for an employer who is paying into state’s unemployment insurance program. That work must have occurred after the start of your original benefit year. And your total gross pay for that work must equal at least 3 times your weekly benefit amount.
If you are receiving $300 per week during your first benefit year, then you would need to earn at least $900 from qualified employment (e.g., not independent contracting on a 1099-basis) during that benefit year in order to possibly qualify for a second benefit year. Just a few temporary assignments could easily generate that much income for you.
4. Full-time temporary work of several weeks doesn’t kick you out of the IDES system forever.
If you are working on a full-time temporary assignment for several weeks, it’s quite possible that your earnings for each of those weeks would be more than your weekly benefit amounts would have been. For those weeks you’re working with that much pay, you would not receive IDES benefits. The total pool from which you might be able to draw isn’t reduced; that amount balance remains intact.
As soon as your temporary assignment ends, you should notify IDES right away that your work has ended. Remember that the IDES week is Sunday through Saturday ~ so don’t wait until the following Monday! In many cases, the IDES case manager is able to waive any one-week waiting period. They can restart your certification cycle with minimal disruption. When you recertify online, just indicate that your temporary work ended due to layoff (the electronic system doesn’t have an option for you to say that the assignment ended).
If you’re still within the one-year period of your benefit year, then restarting your certification just picks up where it previously left off. It doesn’t change the weekly benefit amount for which you’re eligible, nor does it change the account balance of benefits which you may claim.
5. Temporary work doesn’t reduce the weekly benefit amount if you do qualify for a 2nd benefit year.
If you qualify for a second year of IDES benefits, then your weekly benefit amount will be recalculated from a new “base period.” The base period is the previous five quarters. They start with the first four of those five recent quarters to evaluate your income and calculate your benefit amount.
Will your earned income in those 4-5 quarters be less than what you earned when you were employed full-time before your first benefit year? Almost certainly so. Will your benefit amount for the second benefit year be less than it was in the first as a result? Probably so.
Some people are concerned that temping for a lower wage in turn means a lower weekly benefit amount during that 2nd benefit year. But it’s important to remember that the 1st year compared to the 2nd year is like apples and oranges. Similar, but different. It’s not an option to automatically continue the benefit amount from the first year into the second benefit year … not without an equal amount of five-quarter income. So temping, even for a wage lower than what you previously made, doesn’t cause the benefit to be lowered. That would happen anyway. Instead, temping helps to ensure that you’ve earned enough income to even qualify for any 2nd-year benefit at all! And that 2nd benefit year, even with a lower benefit amount, will likely be for more weeks than any of the federal EUC tiers would have given you.
6. Temping reinforces your employ-ability for any prospective employer who considers your resume.
Skill atrophy is real, especially for someone unemployed long-term. Employers know this and it’s a factor in their hiring decisions. Just last week, one of my client contacts reviewed a resume of someone laid off last October. Her response was, “Well, what has he been doing since then?”
Temporary work at least signals that you have been actively looking for work, accepting opportunities, and reinforcing your workplace skills. In this highly competitive job market, that could be the positive factor that tips the decision in your favor!
