Unemployment Insurance Benefit Rights

There are no federal standards for benefits in terms of qualifying requirements, benefit amounts, or duration of regular benefits. Hence, there is no common pattern of benefit provisions comparable to that in coverage and financing. States have developed diverse and complex formulas for determining workers' benefit rights.

Under all state unemployment laws, a worker's benefit rights depend on his or her experience in covered employment in a past period of time, called the base period. The time period during which the weekly rate and the duration of benefits determined for a given worker apply to such worker is called the benefit year.