United Media Guild VP David Carson has gone through the unemployment compensation process for his first furlough week. Here is the link to the site.
Here is David’s summary:
STEP ONE
I just filed for my first week of unemployment with the state of Missouri. It was pretty straight forward. I had to create a username and password, and then I followed the prompts on the screen. Note, I didn’t need any paperwork to file, the state seemed to know that I worked for the Post-Dispatch, probably from filing taxes in the past or the Post-Dispatch making payroll tax payments in my name. FYI you’ll need your checkbook with you if you choose to have your benefits given to you by direct deposit. The site will ask for your routing number and account number, if you don’t know where those are on your check they have an easy to read diagram to show you where the numbers are on your checks. The entire process took about 30 minutes from start to finish.
STEP TWO
Last week I filed for unemployment on the first day of my furlough Monday, April 13, 2020. I thought maybe that was it and that I would be seeing a check for the missed time by the end of the week. But I was wrong.
I logged back into Missouri’s online unemployment site with the account name and password I had established on Monday, April 13, 2020. What I didn’t do, or more accurately couldn’t do last week was click on the “Weekly Request for Payment” tab. When I clicked on that tab last week, week of April 13th, it said something like “no weeks available to file”. I thought maybe I had already filed but that is where I was wrong.
On Monday, April 20th I was able to click on the “Weekly Request for Payment” and it took me through a series of pages I needed to fill out to get a check. In retrospect, it makes sense now. Because the questions the state wanted me to answer couldn’t be answered until after the week of April 13th was done.
So, to get your money, log back into the unemployment site, click on the “Weekly Request for Payment” tab, click on “File Weekly Request for Payment”, which takes you to a page with a series questions that need to be filled out. Basically, the state wants to know did you receive any money from anyone for the week you were unemployed/furloughed. They also ask if you were physically able to work and were you available for work if it was available. I took a screenshot page of questions for your review. They are easy, straightforward questions, so I answered them and clicked submit.
Then I got a page that said “Weekly Request for Payment Acknowledgement” entered the last four digits of my social security number and clicked submit. Which gave me a “Weekly Request for Payment Confirmation” page. I included screenshots of these pages as well.
So now I guess I’m going to get a check from Missouri for $320 and a check from the federal government of $600. I’ll keep updating this page when either I get paid or need to file more information on the site.
Good luck, hope this information is helpful.
PS-Last week when I first created my unemployment claim I told them I wanted them to withhold federal taxes from the check. I got a “correspondence” from the state telling me to fill out a form to confirm the federal tax withholdings and mail it or fax it back to them. A day after I “faxed” the form to the state I received another correspondence telling me the state had received my faxed form.