Census job & my unemployment benefits?

It is ok to take the job as it is temporary. Just be careful of what you expect from them. Also, if you apply and are offered the job, and turn it down you no longer qualify for UI benefits. But how they gonna know!! I would not tell them about needing time off, they are very disorganized and probably won't even care that you are not working. You can work as few hours as you want. The way they do it is you report to the team lead and he/she gives you a grouping of work that will take you 8 to 10 hours. Then you turn that in and they give you more, based on how many hours you want that day.

My daughter is working for them now. When hired she was told it would be for 3 months. It has been 3 weeks and her team has no more work. No work, no pay! Pay checks are automatically deposited but no paycheck stubs are issued so they are not even sure if they are getting paid as expected. They got reimbursed for mileage, but after driving up and down mud roads and racking 500+ miles on her car her fuel pump gave out. The fix cost her $350. No one knows if there is more work in her team, when she calls the district office they give her the run around, transfer to someone else who doesn't know.

The UI thing is the big question. She could not get a answer. I believe, but not sure, it will mess up any UI your getting. You will not get UI benefits while working. The current claim will be closed. The problem is when you have no more census work and file again your claim may be based on the earnings of the prior 3 qtrs. Not current qtr. So if you have not worked in the last year, you may not have any earnings to qualify on. I don't believe it is as simply as re-opening a prior claim.

Collecting a paycheck from a temp job will affect your UI in different ways, depending on how long you have been unemployed and in what state you live. See this article:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0329/Is-any-work...

If you are still collecting on your initial 52 weeks of benefits, you should be able to go back to collecting benefits after the census jobs are over -- for enumerators (the people going door-to-door), the jobs are only supposed to last about 6-8 weeks. But once you have collected those initial 52 weeks and (if) you still don't have a permanent job, the state will do a recalculation of your benefits. Will they take into account the wages earned at the census job, thereby potentially lowering your weekly benefit amount? That's a question for your state unemployment office.

Um, yeah, Census is a temporary job because it is temporary work. So if you tell them you can't work for a major portion of the time they'll need you, they won't hire you. That will be crunch time for the Census, and you won't be able to do it.

If you want that much time off, you'll need to find a permanent job -- not a temporary one.

But, yes, it will be possible for you to get unemployment benefits again if you lose your job due to layoffs. If you just quit or are fired...not so much. Besides, there's no reason why you can't use your time at the Census Bureau to be looking for another job. Unemployment is a waste of tax payers' money IF you aren't doing your best to seek another job and you are able to work. Under the correct circumstances, it's a great thing...but you need to set your priorities and realize it might be more important to get a job than to go on a three week trip.