- When you file your unemployment claim, it lasts for one benefit year. Your California unemployment benefit year is the 52 weeks that follow the Sunday preceding the day you filed your initial claim. You can go off your unemployment and restart it during your benefit year, picking up exactly where you left off in terms of benefit amount and eligibility. After your benefit year, you must refile your claim, receiving a new eligibility and compensation determination.
- During your benefit year, the California Employment Development Department assigns you a maximum benefit amount (MBA), which is the total amount of compensation you can collect. If you reach your MBA, your claim ends until the benefit year is over and you can refile it. California MBA is equal to half of your insured wages earned during your base period. Insured wages come from work insured under the state’s unemployment insurance laws. Your base period is the first four of the last five full calendar quarters before you filed for benefits.
- California unemployment insurance law limits the amount you can collect per benefit year. This ensures that the money in the unemployment insurance trust fund is enough to go around and prevents claimants from making unemployment their only source of income each year. As of September 2011, you can’t collect more than 26 times your weekly benefit amount in California per benefit year.
- In 2008, Congress passed legislation that offered federally funded unemployment extensions to long-term unemployed claimants. There are four tiers, with the first two tiers available in all states and the last two only available in states with excessively high total unemployment rates. To participate in each level you must exhaust previous levels of benefits by Jan. 3, 2012. These extensions are separate from your California unemployment and only occur when you’ve maxed out your regular state benefits.
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