Working for yourself can have a lot of advantages. You can have flexibility with your work hours and where you work. There is no one to hold you back from setting some serious goals. One serious drawback to working for yourself is that at some points you could find yourself not having any income coming in. Even if you have a nest egg saved for this kind of event, it may not be enough to get you by for very long. At some point, you may find yourself wondering if there is any help that someone in your situation may be able to get from the government. While many self-employed individuals are not able to qualify for unemployment benefits, there are some other government benefits that may be of some use.
State Programs
Each state administers their own set of unemployment benefits and insurance to employees who lost their jobs to no fault of their own. The reason that self-employed individuals are not able to get unemployment from the state is that the funding for these programs is offered by the employers and their state and federal payroll taxes. In 1935, Congress created unemployment insurance through the Social Security Act. Both the federal and state laws together determine who is eligible for the unemployment compensation and how much they can get and for how long. For unemployed workers to be able to receive this benefit, they must have earned a minimum amount of wages through working from their employer which was paid to the unemployment insurance tax.
Incorporation Consideration
If you consider yourself to be self-employed but your company is incorporated and pays out unemployment taxes, you may find that you are eligible to receive the benefits. Aside from paying the taxes, you are generally paying wages to your employees that amount to more than $1,500 or more in any quarter of the calendar year. Also, your company must have had at least one worker on one day of the week during at least twenty weeks of the calendar year. The weeks do not have to be consecutive. You can contact your local state unemployment office for more information about your eligibility for unemployment benefits.