Regular UC is similar to an insurance policy; the worker has to put in enough to draw out later. A claimant must have worked long enough and earned enough within a certain recent period of time, and the earnings must be spread out in certain ways. The “base period” is the first four calendar quarters of the last five complete calendar quarters before the week of benefit application.1  The wages earned during the base period, subject to a statutory maximum, determine a claimant’s weekly benefit amount (WBA).2  The agency issues a Notice of Monetary Determination to the claimant and base-period employers; the Notice can be reconsidered if in error.

There are two state statutory requirements for base-period wage sufficiency: (1) a minimum earnings requirement;3  and (2) total base period wages of at least one and a half times the amount earned in the highest calendar quarter of the base period.4  This “high-quarter ratio” requirement is a historical leftover from earlier statutory revisions. The result is that some workers need only the statutory minimum in the base period to be eligible (if their wages are spread among quarters), but others can be found ineligible for having insufficient wages, even though they earned several times the minimum, because their wages were concentrated in a single quarter. As a result, many with sporadic employment are shut out completely from UC. Unfortunately for a large sector of the working population, the requirement that wages be spread out in the base period has been held constitutional.5

• 1La. R.S. 23:1472(4), (7).
• 2La. R.S. 23:1592.
• 3La. R.S. 23:1592(A).
• 4La. R.S. 23:1600(5).
• 5Estelle v. Eysink, 2014-0108 (La. App. 4 Cir. 08/06/14); 147 So. 3d 1136.

Monetary determinations are often wrong because a claimant’s earnings may be under-reported or miscalculated. Review the notice with your client. Find out (1) the amount generally earned per pay period both in the base period and since; (2) how many times your client filed for UC during and since the base period and to what end (you can check the client’s online account, too); (3) whether base period wages are truly the client’s and have been correctly calculated; and (4) whether any employers or earned wages have been excluded from the base period.

In the event of errors, there are some possible means to increase the WBA:

• Supply missing earnings documentation. If earnings were not reported, your client may also want to provide the documentation to the Social Security Administration. If the client does not have any documentation, you can ask the agency to investigate the employer. You can also supply an affidavit or other evidence (e.g., purchase receipts for supplies, texts or other communications indicating work locations or dates, etc.).
• If it would make a client eligible to count wages when earned rather than when paid, the agency can shift wages from one pay period to another.1  This often shifts a paycheck from one quarter to another because paychecks are usually issued about two weeks after the relevant work period.
• The client may still be eligible on an earlier claim (e.g., regular benefits were exhausted and the client didn’t file for extended benefits, or the client was previously disqualified on the merits but should now be requalified with new earnings).
• If the client has recent earnings that are not in the base period, filing a new claim in the next calendar quarter (or even later). This drops the first quarter in the prior claim and adds a new quarter, which may result in monetary eligibility in the future.

• 1La. R.S. 23:1598.