New Jersey Weekly Unemployment Benefits

Weekly Benefit Rate

Your weekly benefit rate is the amount of unemployment compensation the DLWD approves you to receive for each benefit week. This is 60 percent of the average wage you were paid from covered employment during your base period. Covered employment is any work included under the New Jersey state unemployment laws and requiring the employer to pay into the state's unemployment insurance fund. Your base period is the first four of the last five full calendar quarters before you filed for unemployment benefits. As of June 2011, the state laws cap your weekly benefit rate at no more than $598.

New Jersey determines the number of benefit weeks by the number of base weeks in your base period. A base week is the period from Sunday to Saturday during your base period in which you earned no less than 20 times the current New Jersey minimum wage from covered employment. State law limits this to no more than 26 times your weekly benefit rate. You can calculate the total unemployment compensation you can collect each year by multiplying your available benefit weeks by your weekly benefit rate.

To collect each week of unemployment from the New Jersey unemployment insurance program, you must certify for it with the DLWD. Certification is a biweekly process through which you call into the claims line or log into the claims site to answers eligibility questions about each of the two benefit weeks in question. You certify for each benefit week separately and the answers for one week don't affect the payment for another week.The DLWD distributes payments based on your answers. All answers must be true to your knowledge or you can face unemployment fraud penalties.

New Jersey distributes your weekly unemployment benefits by prepaid debit card or direct deposit. If you wish to have your weekly benefits sent by direct deposit, you must sign up for it with the DLWD and provide your banking information. If you don't, you automatically receive your benefit through a prepaid benefit debit card. You receive one payment every other week, consisting of two payments for each of the previous weeks of benefits.