- Federal law used to require that if a person was receiving Social Security, unemployment compensation needed to be reduced. It didn't have to be a dollar-for-dollar offset, but there needed to be some type of reduction. The law changed,and by 2002, only 22 states still used offsets. By 2010, only three states used an offset: Illinois, Louisiana and Virginia.
- To determine how much your unemployment benefits would be reduced, you need to know how much you would collect in unemployment and Social Security if you collect them separately. Divide the amount you would receive in Social Security benefits in half, and subtract that amount from what you can receive from unemployment benefits. The amount left is what you will receive if you collect unemployment and Social Security at the same time in Illinois.
- To be eligible to collect unemployment benefits, you need to have worked for a company that was required to pay unemployment insurance and have lost your job through no fault of your own. To actually be able to collect unemployment benefits, you need to have earned at least $1,600 of insured work during your base period (the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters), and $440 must have been earned outside of the base period at a time when your wages were highest.
- For an individual, Illinois pays 47 percent of your base period wages from the two highest-earning quarters. The amount is paid out in 26 payments (a maximum of $388 a week in 2011). If the unemployed person has a nonworking spouse, he can receive an additional 9 percent (a maximum of $462 a week in 2011). If he has a dependent child, he can receive an additional 17.4 percent (a maximum of $531 a week in 2011). If you double the amount of unemployment compensation you are eligible for, the result will be the amount of Social Security you can receive before you totally negate your unemployment benefits.
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