Unemployment Benefits for Multiple-State Workers
All states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands participate in a federal program called “The Interstate Arrangement for Combining Employment and Wages.” People who earned wages in more than one state can have those wage credits combined and used in the base period of the state where they file for unemployment benefits.
You must file in one of the states where you physically worked. If you file a Connecticut claim and you also worked in another state during the base period of your claim:
- The Connecticut Department of Labor will request wage information from the state(s) where you worked.
- The state where you worked will send us wage information for wage credits earned during the Connecticut base period.
- The wage credits earned in the other state will only be used on your Connecticut claim if this increases your weekly benefit or allows you to establish monetary eligibility if you wouldn’t qualify based on only your Connecticut wages.
- Once wages from another state are used on a Connecticut claim, they can’t be used for a claim in the other state(s).
- Combined wage claims filed in Connecticut are governed and paid based on Connecticut laws.
- Combined wage claims take longer to process than regular claims because we must correspond with other states and verify wages. These claims will be processed as quickly as possible.