reduction in pay (approx 30%) and hours

by shiroley
(Michigan)

company cut our pay 4.00 per hour. and reduced our hours of work employer said he would not contest the unemployment.


Hi there,

Well I guess he's expecting some to quit??

Personally, before I took the leap to quit .. I'd find out if I would be eligible for Michigan partial unemployment benefits.

In Michigan, you are considered partially unemployed if you are working less than full-time and your earning per week are one and half times your weekly benefit amount for total unemployment .. or less.

How MI works it is to reduce your WBA fifty cents for every dollar earned, but if you earn over that one and half figure .. you will not get a partial benefit.

So just for the sake of explaining .. let's say you're making around $12 per hour or $480 gross per week. Per Michigan's formula (HQ x 4.1% + any dependent allownaces) Your WBA would approx. $256 dollars .. plus the DA's .. but let's just use the 256.

This weekly benefit amount has been determined by the high quarter earnings in a base period that looks at wages .. before the pay was reduced.

If you are now working 25 hour per week earning $8 per hour or $200 per week .. you could expect 56 dollars in benefits. I don't know if the DA's are excluded or not in the partial benefit calculation .. but you should ask. This is not a very generous formula for partial benefits.

But obviously the problem for you is whether keeping the job is the right thing to do or if quitting is. I don't know how many hours you lost.

If you want to quit .. I suggest you head on over to Michigan's unemployment precedent decisions and find out if the reduction in pay and hours is considered a substantial change in the employment to give you good cause to quit.

I did find one that said 15 percent wasn't enough, but if your pay has been reduced by 30 percent you should also factor in how much more the reduction in hours will make.

I know, short question .. another long winded answer.