Millions of Americans have rapidly gone from collecting paychecks to filing for unemployment payments. An unprecedented tens of millions of workers have filed for unemployment benefits since the coronavirus pandemic began.
How much will you receive while unemployed? There’s no single answer. A number of factors, like your paycheck, can come into play. Where you live can make a huge difference, since the maximum unemployment benefit can differ by tens of thousands of dollars from one state to another, according to a recent Zippia analysis.
The maximum benefit in the lowest-paying state is about $ 43,000, calculated annually, the analysis found. In the state with the biggest maximum unemployment checks, that figure is $ 74,000 annually.
Following is a look at the maximum annualized unemployment benefit a worker can receive in each state. We used numbers from Zippia — which reflect the extra $ 600 per week that Congress recently added to state unemployment benefits — as well as from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, WalletHub, the Tax Foundation and other sources.
