What do people ask about Texas unemployment?

For a question about your own claim, such as where a particular payment is, contact TWC. The answers below explain how TWC's rules work and link to the Texas guides that give the full detail.

Why has your first payment not arrived?

Any of these can hold up a first payment:

• You have not requested payment. You must request payment to receive benefits, starting on the date in the instructions TWC sent you, without waiting for TWC to decide whether you are eligible. How to request payment takes you through the steps.
• TWC sent you a notice to verify your identity, and you have not completed it. An unfinished verification delays or denies your benefits, and what happens after you apply explains how to verify.
• TWC is still deciding whether you are eligible, which takes about 4 weeks from the date you apply.
• A Determination on Payment of Unemployment Benefits says TWC cannot pay you. Even one such determination stops payment for that period, and you may appeal the determination.
• You have an overpayment on your record. TWC cannot pay you benefits while you have one, and if TWC says you were overpaid covers what to do.

Your first payment typically pays for 1 of the 2 weeks in your request. TWC holds back the payment for the other week, your waiting week. When your payment arrives gives the conditions for releasing it.

How can 2-1-1 Texas help while you wait?

2-1-1 Texas, a program of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, is a free and anonymous social service hotline. From anywhere in Texas, dial 2-1-1 or (877) 541-7905 to find resources in your community, such as help with food, housing, child care, crisis counseling, or substance abuse treatment. The hotline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and TWC's unemployment benefits page lists 2-1-1 Texas as an additional resource.

After you dial 2-1-1 and select your language, pick the option you need:

• Option 1: services in your area
• Option 2: state benefits (YourTexasBenefits.com)
• Option 4: registering for the State of Texas Emergency Assistance Registry (STEAR)
• Option 5: mental health and substance abuse resources in your area

2-1-1 Texas lists (877) 541-7905 for Options 1 and 5 only. It also shares information online on the 2-1-1 Texas website.

Why is a payment less than your weekly benefit amount?

TWC sends you less than your full weekly benefit amount for a week when:

• you earned more than 25 percent of your weekly benefit amount from work that week;
• you receive a pension from an employer whose wages TWC used to figure your benefits;
• you receive disability pay from a branch of the military, though disability pay from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is not deducted;
• you owe court-ordered child support, which can take up to 50 percent of your weekly payment; or
• you asked TWC to withhold federal income tax, which takes 10 percent of the gross amount of each payment.

Other payments that reduce your benefits explains the pension, military, and child support rules, and having TWC withhold tax shows how to change your withholding.

Can you work part time and keep your benefits?

You may keep receiving benefits while you work part time, as long as you meet all the other requirements, including looking for full-time work. When you request payment for a week you worked, report your hours and earnings for that Sunday-through-Saturday week, even if payday has not come yet.

TWC names failing to report work and earnings correctly as the most common type of benefits fraud. Fraud adds a 15 percent penalty on top of the benefits you have to repay. For how earnings change a payment, see TWC's example in working part time while you claim.

What happens when you start a full-time job?

You are no longer eligible for benefits from the day the job starts, even if your first paycheck comes later. You may still request payment for the weeks before your start date, and if the job starts during the weeks a request covers, report that work and those earnings in the request. Returning to full-time work is also one of the conditions for TWC to release your waiting week payment, which you request online or by phone as the payment requests guide explains.

If the job later ends within your benefit year and you start requesting payments again, you must tell TWC about the job separation. TWC investigates each job separation to decide whether you can keep receiving benefits, which may delay or deny your payment.

What if TWC sends you something for a claim you never filed?

Report it on TWC's secure online fraud portal, and handle what you received this way:

• A notice to verify your identity: do not complete the verification.
• A debit card from U.S. Bank: destroy it without activating it.
• A Form 1099-G: report it without delay, and read a 1099-G for a claim you did not file before you do your taxes.
• An overpayment notice: once TWC confirms the claim was filed with a stolen identity, you are not responsible for that overpayment.

Report a claim filed in your name lists the other steps TWC suggests, such as asking the credit bureaus for a fraud alert.

How do you send TWC a document it asked for?

Upload it through TWC's UI Submission Portal. The portal takes pdf, jpg, jpeg, tiff, and png files of up to 7 MB.

A work search log is different: if TWC asked for yours, enter your activities in Unemployment Benefits Services (UBS), TWC's free online system, and upload the log only if you cannot submit it there. Keeping your work search log has the rest of TWC's rules for logs.

Do not use the portal for an appeal or any appeal documents. How to file an appeal lists the ways TWC accepts them.

Do unemployment taxes come out of your paycheck?

No. Employees do not pay unemployment taxes, and employers cannot take those taxes out of your pay. TWC describes unemployment benefits as an employer-paid program. Federal income tax on the benefits you receive is a separate matter, covered in taxes on unemployment benefits.