Long-Term Unemployment, Temporary Work, and Recalculation of Jobless Benefits

Long-term unemployed finding it sometimes pays better not to work, By Mara Lee, March 10, 2010, Hartford Courant: “Ten months after Mark Krawiec lost his road construction job, he eagerly took a six-week assignment on Route 2 that paid just over $1,000 a week. Big mistake. ‘By working and knowing it wasn’t steady, and it wasn’t going to last long, I cut my own throat,’ said Krawiec, 60, of Plainville. That’s because in January 2010, the state Department of Labor reset his benefits based on the work he did in 2009. His weekly check dropped from $544 to $254. Krawiec had no idea that accepting work would slash his unemployment pay this way. Hardly anyone does. It’s a quirk in the federal rules that’s most likely hurting thousands of Connecticut residents who have been searching for work for more than a year, many from the hard-hit construction trades…”