Technically, I am not unemployed right now. But I have had my hours and income significantly cut back. For my customer service job, I am working about 10% of what I normally worked for less than 10% of what I normally make. And my other job doesn’t have enough work for me to make up the difference. I know that even making $50 a week is more than a lot of people, but I doubt there is anyone who can live on that little.
Fortunately, you can file for unemployment when you are underemployed as well. And I think I fit underemployment exactly in my current situation. It is a temporary situation, but again that’s exactly what unemployment is for. And while unemployment isn’t typically for someone self-employed (as I am with both my day jobs), there have been changes made recently during this time that allows self-employed people to file.
As soon as I knew that I would be eligible for unemployment, I felt a bit of relief. While I do have family that can help me when I’m not making money, I don’t like to have to rely on them. I want to be able to support myself. It’s a point of pride. And it’s not easy to always do it, but I will take steps I need to so I can try to make it happen.
In California, they weren’t accepting self-employed people in the unemployment system at first. They had to create a new section on how to file to fit that information. So while many of my friends have been filing for the past month, I wasn’t able to file until yesterday.
It’s been a long time since I’ve filed for unemployment. While I do remember a lot of things, there have also been things that have changed and it took me a bit of time to get everything done. I’m still not 100% sure I did it all right, but I know I will have a phone interview to discuss it coming up. So hopefully I can clarify anything that might be wrong. And it took twice as long to file as it should have because on the last page the site crashed. I knew there was a chance for it to happen since I was applying the first day that self-employed people could do so. But for some reason, I didn’t think to take screenshots of everything I filled out so I had it in case I needed it again. That was my mistake and when I did it all over for the second time, I made sure I took those screenshots.
I got a message saying that my application was successfully submitted. But I have no idea how long it will take for me to get my first check or to be approved. I know that things are taking longer than normal, which is to be expected with the number of people who are currently applying. I am lucky that right now I am not in a desperate place to get my first check. I do have savings I can use and my parents have said they could help me out. I will be ok. I might have a time where I get stressed and feel horrible that I have to ask for help, but I know I will get that help. And I know that the unemployment will kick in at some point and I will get the money from when I started being underemployed. The very first time I filed (about 13 years ago), I had an issue that prevented me from getting my checks for several months. But once it was settled, I got everything that I missed. And this will be the same since I have been underemployed for several weeks already and just couldn’t file until this week.
It was a bit of a frustrating procedure to file for a few reasons, but I also feel very lucky that I had so many friends who had already gone through it that could guide me and give me advice. Unemployment is usually a pretty lonely thing to go through, but with so many of us going through it we have a community that we can turn to for help. That was something I wasn’t expecting but made everything a little easier to deal with. I wasn’t embarrassed that I was filing because it seemed like almost everyone I know was doing the same. And those who already went through it were more than happy to share what they had learned. Hopefully from their help, my unemployment process will be a bit easier than theirs were.
I have no clue when the next steps with this process will happen, but at least I got the first step done. And eventually, I will be getting the help that I could use in this unusual time.
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