Unemployment Benefits Calculator 2026

It depends on your past wages, but each state sets a floor and ceiling on the weekly benefit amount (WBA). For 2026: California $40–$450/week, Texas $75–$605/week, New York $140–$869/week, Florida $32–$275/week, and Ohio $176–$842/week (Ohio pays half your average weekly wage, so its floor is half the $352 minimum qualifying AWW and its ceiling depends on dependents). Pennsylvania ranges $68–$605/week but uses a statutory lookup table rather than a formula. Use the calculator above for your specific estimate.

Yes. Unemployment benefits are fully taxable as ordinary income on your federal return, and most states with an income tax also tax them. Nobody withholds tax automatically unless you request voluntary 10% federal withholding (Form W-4V), so many recipients need to make quarterly estimated payments to avoid an underpayment penalty — see the Quarterly Estimated Tax Calculator.

Duration varies by state and by the specific claim. California pays up to 26 weeks, Texas up to 26 weeks, and New York up to 26 weeks (after one unpaid waiting week). FloridaCommerce confirms 12 weeks for claims filed in 2025 or 2026; Florida's statutory duration formula can rise as high as 23 weeks if the state unemployment rate increases. Ohio pays up to 26 weeks, but only if you have at least 26 qualifying weeks in your base period — fewer qualifying weeks means fewer total weeks of benefits.

Your base period is the block of past calendar quarters your state uses to calculate your benefit — typically the first 4 of the last 5 completed calendar quarters before you filed. first 4 of last 5 completed calendar quarters before the claim (alternate base period = last 4 completed quarters if the standard period does not qualify you). Wages you earned in your highest-paying quarter of that period ("high-quarter wages") drive most states' benefit formulas; Ohio instead averages your total base-period wages over your qualifying weeks.

Most states let you keep working part-time and still collect a reduced benefit, but the reduction formula differs sharply by state. California and Ohio exempt a portion of your earnings (a flat amount or a percentage) and deduct the rest dollar-for-dollar from your WBA. Texas lets you keep 25% of your WBA in earnings for free, then reduces the payment above that. Florida exempts a flat $58/week. New York is the outlier — it doesn't look at your earnings at all for most claimants; it pays a percentage of your WBA based on hours worked (100% for 0–10 hours down to $0 for 31+ hours), though earnings above the annual maximum WBA still zero out the week entirely.

No — unemployment insurance is administered state-by-state, so both the benefit formula and the dollar caps vary widely. A worker with identical wage history could qualify for very different weekly benefits in California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Ohio purely because of which state processes the claim (usually the state where you worked, not where you live).

TX and NY maxima each update in October (New York on the first Monday); Ohio updates its dependency caps and minimum average weekly wage each January; California has been static since 2005; Florida’s $32–$275 range is fixed by statute while its duration is recomputed annually from the state unemployment rate; Pennsylvania’s chart moves only when L&I reissues it. All figures were re-verified against official sources on 2026-08-22 and should be re-checked around October 2026. All figures on this page were verified against official state agency sources as of 2026-08-22.

The weekly benefit amount (WBA) is what you're paid for one week of full unemployment. The maximum benefit amount (MBA) is the total dollar cap on your entire claim — usually your WBA multiplied by your state's maximum duration in weeks, sometimes further capped as a percentage of your total base-period wages. You could exhaust your MBA before reaching the maximum number of weeks if your total wages were low relative to your WBA.

Pennsylvania's weekly benefit rate comes from a statutory lookup table (the "Rate and Amount of UC Benefits Chart") that approximates 50% of your full-time weekly wage, banded in a way that doesn't reduce to a clean formula. Pennsylvania's weekly benefit rate comes from a statutory lookup table (the "Rate and Amount of UC Benefits Chart") that approximates 50% of your full-time weekly wage, with a 2% reduction under Act 144 of 2012 already applied. It is not reproduced here as a formula — approximating a statutory lookup table risks silently misstating real claimants' benefits. Use the official calculator/table linked below for an exact figure. Rather than approximate it and risk giving you a wrong number, this page shows Pennsylvania's rules and links to the official rate lookup instead.

In many states, severance pay can delay or reduce your unemployment benefits for the weeks it is allocated to cover, especially if it is paid out as continued regular wages rather than a lump sum — rules vary significantly by state. It is also separately taxable; see the Severance Tax Calculator to estimate the withholding on that payment before you file your unemployment claim.