You must understand how the Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation program works to make sure you receive all the benefits and help you are entitled to. Our previous article discussed the importance of the Claim Confirmation Letter and its implications for you and your chances of finding a new job.

Now we will discuss a second but equally important form, the Notice of Financial Determination. If the claim confirmation letter was your confirmation your claim had been processed, the notice of financial determination is your confirmation that you are eligible for unemployment benefits and how much compensation you will receive. As you can imagine, understanding how your unemployment benefits are worked out is important if you want to guarantee you get all the benefits you are entitled to.

NOTICE OF FINANCIAL DETERMINATION

Your notice of financial determination will provide you with your UC code the maximum number of weeks you are entitled to benefits, the maximum amount of compensation you can receive, your weekly benefits rate, your additional dependent’s allowance, when your benefits start and end, and your partial benefit credit.

If it is the first time your receive a notice of financial determination you might be confused by some of these terms. Let’s look at what each term means for you in some more detail.

Maximum Benefit Amount

Your maximum benefit amount is the total benefits you will receive if you exhaust your UC benefits for your benefit year. This amount is calculated by multiplying the number of unemployment weeks you are entitled to by your weekly benefit rate. Your number of benefit weeks is determined by how many credit weeks (i.e. weeks you earned $50 or more) you have accumulated in your base year. Your base year comprises of the first four months of the last five since you filed your unemployment compensation claim. If you contributed 18 or more credit weeks you are entitled to the maximum 26 weeks. However, if you contributed less than 16 weeks you are not eligible for unemployment benefits.

Weekly Benefit Rate

Your weekly benefit rate is chiefly determined by how much income you generated during the highest earning quarter of your base year. Quarters are comprised of three months starting from January to March, April to June and so on. The table below shows how your weekly benefit is calculated.

PART A	PART B	PART C	PART D	PART E
HIGHEST QUARTERLY WAGE	RATE OF COMPENSATION	QUALIFYING WAGES	AMOUNT OF COMPENSATION
			26 WKS	16 WKS
$4888-4912 4913-4937 4938-4962 4963-4987 4988-5012 5013-5037	$198 199 200 201 202 203	$7840 7880 7920 7960 8000 8040	$5148 5174 5200 5226 5252 5278	$3168 3184 3200 3216 3232 3248

To illustrate, if you earned $4,900 during your highest earning quarter, you qualify for $198 a week. How long you receive the weekly benefits is determined by how many credit weeks you contributed. If you contributed 18 or more weeks, you will get the full 26 weeks for a total $5,148. If you contributed less than 16 weeks you would receive 16 weeks of benefits: a total of $3,168.

When you receive your notice of financial determination compare it with your personal records and confirm all the information included is correct.

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