Server unemployment when restaurant closes

[Ryt4578]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? South Carolina

My place of employment is closing the doors for good on January 1. I am working until they lock the doors. My question is this: Will I be able to receive unemployment, and how wil the state determine my base pay? I have worked at this job for almost 3 years. I make $2.13/hour and $5.76 for overtime. I work an average of 50/hours a week. I also claim at least 8% of cash sales as tips and all my credit card tips. My paycheck biweekly says I make around $1000 in total wages. I’m not sure what numbers the state will use to calculate my pay.

 

[FlyingRon]

You're supposed to report ALL your tips. The 8% number doesn't APPLY to you but your employer. SC calculates the benefit on the average weekly income, that's all your reported tips and any other money the employer paid you. In your case, you likely are going to hit the maximum benefit cap of $326 a week.

 

[cbg]

That is precisely the sort of situation unemployment is FOR. I don't think there's any question you'll be able to collect. I won't even pretend to figure what your benefit will be, but as to yes or no, I can't imagine it would be anything but Yes.

 

[commentator]

I know you feel the urge to pre plan and all that, and you are certainly doing the right thing to work right up till the doors close. But whatever the unemployment system has in their wage records, whatever they have submitted for you on their quarterly reports as the wage you have been receiving during the base period, which is the first four of the last five completed quarters, will be what your claim will set up based on. And unless you have a paper trail (check stubs, etc.) of anything more than that or different from that, you won't be able to dispute your monetary determination and say you made more because of unreported tips. And in most cases, unless you just have some totally blank quarters all together, it is not worth it to go into that and argue for a different amount of payment than the state shows on the monetary determination, and this is why.

With paychecks being issued saying that you made about xxxxx amount of money per week, I suspect that's exactly what they've been reporting to the state, whatever they're giving you on your paystubs. And the good news is, you reach the max of $326 a week pretty quickly, and after you hit that amount of wages and earnings to get you to THAT point, it doesn't matter whether you made $30,000 or $130,000, you never qualify for more than $326 a week, for 26 weeks or less. So agonizing about whether they're going to count all your tips and wages exactly isn't very functional at this point. As long as you are showing enough wages to get you to $326 a week, (and they do not give pre estimates, you'll have to wait until you file the claim to determine this) that's all you could possibly get, whether they have what you believe to be the exact figures correct or not.

Expect a few weeks after you are let go from the restaurant closing when you will be getting your claim set up and you will not get any money. File for unemployment during the first Sunday through Saturday week that you are not WORKING, not the last week you get paid. The first week you qualify for will be a waiting week, no pay for that one, so it will take say, about four weeks to get your claim started and get unemployment checks coming in regularly. Plan for that. But you cannot serve the waiting week until you have signed up for benefits and began making weekly certifications, so do that promptly.

 

[LdiJ]

I know you feel the urge to pre plan and all that, and you are certainly doing the right thing to work right up till the doors close. But whatever the unemployment system has in their wage records, whatever they have submitted for you on their quarterly reports as the wage you have been receiving during the base period, which is the first four of the last five completed quarters, will be what your claim will set up based on. And unless you have a paper trail (check stubs, etc.) of anything more than that or different from that, you won't be able to dispute your monetary determination and say you made more because of unreported tips. And in most cases, unless you just have some totally blank quarters all together, it is not worth it to go into that and argue for a different amount of payment than the state shows on the monetary determination, and this is why.

With paychecks being issued saying that you made about xxxxx amount of money per week, I suspect that's exactly what they've been reporting to the state, whatever they're giving you on your paystubs. And the good news is, you reach the max of $326 a week pretty quickly, and after you hit that amount of wages and earnings to get you to THAT point, it doesn't matter whether you made $30,000 or $130,000, you never qualify for more than $326 a week, for 26 weeks or less. So agonizing about whether they're going to count all your tips and wages exactly isn't very functional at this point. As long as you are showing enough wages to get you to $326 a week, (and they do not give pre estimates, you'll have to wait until you file the claim to determine this) that's all you could possibly get, whether they have what you believe to be the exact figures correct or not.

Expect a few weeks after you are let go from the restaurant closing when you will be getting your claim set up and you will not get any money. File for unemployment during the first Sunday through Saturday week that you are not WORKING, not the last week you get paid. The first week you qualify for will be a waiting week, no pay for that one, so it will take say, about four weeks to get your claim started and get unemployment checks coming in regularly. Plan for that. But you cannot serve the waiting week until you have signed up for benefits and began making weekly certifications, so do that promptly.

Just a word of warning...my experience with mom and pop shops who are shutting down is that many of them have a tendency NOT to properly report and pay into UC taxes for at least the last quarter they are open, and sometime much farther back than that. Therefore any records the employee can keep ahold of to prove their income and withholding (particularly the last few paystubs showing YTD amounts) would be important to hold onto both for UC purposes and income tax purposes. They may have to do a substitute W2 for income tax purposes.

Now, its equally possible that their employer will do everything correctly, but just in case, that info needs to be held onto.

 

[HRZ]

Do not quit even 1 hr before the doors close ..or give cause to be fired .

I follow that some small operators cut corners about paying some bills near the end...keep good personal paystub records ..you might need them .

Oversimplified, UC looks back a number of quarters and in SC uses your best qualifying prior quarter to compute wages ...and again very roughly if it was $500 a week, estimate about 250 in UC. ( I think 50 % wage replacement applies )

IF you " forgot " proper reporting of all tips and NO you did not say you forgot anything .. ...I smply do not know if you can cure any gap to correct or improve at least one quarter ...I've had a few acquaintances find that rewriting history is NOT so easy ...