What's Being Done To Help Those Of Us Who Have Exhausted Our Unemployment Benefits? Nothing.

[stopbush]

23. Freelancing is a tough gig. I did that in my past as well.

Yeah, it sucked that one wasn't able to collect unemployment as a freelancer. On the other hand, you didn't have your pay "adjusted" to pay for unemployment benefits (employers typically pay their mandated contributions to state unemployment funds by underpaying their employees the amount needed to fund UI).

In most states, you qualify for unemployment benefits after you've worked 26 consecutive weeks at a job that is paying into the system. Your benefit rate is usually 50% of what your gross weekly income was, with a cap on how high it can go. For instance, in CA, the top weekly UI benefit rate is $450 a week, which means that if you made over $900 a week at your last job, you are receiving LESS than 50% of what you were earning in UI benefits.

Some people prefer freelancing to taking a full time job because they like the flexibility, but the trade offs aren't so great when jobs are scarce.

IMHO, the best thing to do is to look for that full time job that comes with benefits...if there are any available.