What is the minimum income to qualify for unemployment in Florida?
Out-of-work residents of the Sunshine State may be eligible for state-funded unemployment compensation if they meet the eligibility criteria. Here’s a look.
The Sunshine State offers state-funded jobless support to residents who have lost their job, been placed on furlough or had their hours cut through no fault of their own called Reemployment Assistance. However, claimants must satisfy some eligibility conditions including meeting a minimum income threshold during the base period of your claim.
Florida has reinstituted the mandatory one-week waiting period before out-of-work residents can begin to receive unemployment compensation payments. Additionally, claimants will have to meet work search requirements while claiming the weekly financial assistance to continue receiving benefits.
What is the minimum income to qualify for unemployment in Florida?
According to the State of Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) Reemployment Assistance Program Handbook, you must have earned at least $3,400 before tax in your ‘base period’ in order to qualify for unemployment benefits. This period is the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters prior to the beginning of your benefit claim. Additionally, “your high quarter wages cannot be more than 1.5x of the entire base period wages.”
What are the full eligibility requirements for Florida Reemployment Assistance?
The minimum income threshold is far from the only condition on receiving unemployment benefits in Florida. You must also meet the following criteria to get the support:
- The loss of employment must not have been your own decision. You can get Reemployment Assistance if you lost your job due to poor performance, but not if you quit for personal reasons or were terminated for malicious misconduct
- You qualify if you are either partially or totally unemployed (partially unemployed means that your hours have been reduced or you are a part-time worker who is unable to find additional work)
- You can only receive Florida jobless support if you are able to work, available to work, and actively seeking work.
For more information on the eligibility requirement, contact your local CareerSource Florida centre.
How to file for unemployment benefits in Florida
As well as satisfying those criteria, jobless support claimants in Florida must also provide a variety of personal and employment details to support their application. The claim should be filed on the state’s CONNECT site, in the My Florida Unemployment sub-section.
To do so you will need to provide the following:
- Social Security number
- Contact information (names, addresses and phone numbers) for all of your employers from the last 18 months
- The dates you worked and amount of wages received for each employer from the last 18 months
- The amount of pre-tax wages earnt for the current week (starting at 12:01 am on Sunday on your first week of filing a claim for unemployment support)
- Proof of identity, such as a driver’s license
- The name and number of your local labor union, if you are a labor union member
- Your Alien Registration Number and work permit expiration date, if you are not a US citizen
- A DD-214, if you were a member of the military within the past two years
- Your SF-50 or SF-8 and check stubs or W2 proof of earnings, if you were a federal employee
- You will also need to provide a check or a deposit slip if you want your benefits deposited directly into your bank account