What You Need to Know: California’s Employment Development Department is making it easier for customers receiving unemployment benefits to report required wages and income information while receiving benefit payments. This helps ensure the Department can pay benefits quickly and accurately to avoid unnecessary eligibility interviews or potential overpayments.
SACRAMENTO — As part of EDDNext, the Employment Development Department (EDD) is continuing to modernize its myEDD online benefit portal — adding a Weekly Wage Reporting Tool to assist unemployment customers to accurately report any earnings they may receive while collecting benefits. The tool combines implementing a wage calculator along with helpful instructions to carefully explain the types of income to report.
Listening to unemployment customers, EDD learned that the wage reporting requirements can be confusing given the vast variety of earnings they may have to report, the differences between when wages are earned and when the individual is actually paid, and between gross wages (earned before any deductions) and net wages.
“Our new Wage Tool is another example of how we’re prioritizing customer-centered improvements. Reporting wages accurately helps Californians get paid faster and minimizes follow-up work from our staff so they can spend more time helping customers where it matters most.”
The unemployment program can be complex. It requires that individuals receiving benefits certify, or answer basic questions every two weeks to tell the EDD that they are still unemployed and remain eligible to continue receiving benefit payments. These questions include letting EDD know if the person receiving benefits was working or earning any wages while receiving payments — which could impact the amount of their benefit payment.
Wages must be reported to the EDD the week they are earned, even if they haven’t been paid yet. Unemployment customers who don’t report wages, or inaccurately report their income, may receive an overpayment — benefits they will have to pay back later.
There are many different types of income that workers could receive with the variety of industries in California, including entertainment which has unique income types that are sometimes difficult for unemployment customers to identify and track accurately.
The tool’s wage calculator includes helpful instructions and drop-down menus to assist customers to better understand the types of income to report. Customers are prompted to enter information about their employer, the number of hours worked, and all related wages or income.
Visit Reporting Work and Wages FAQs for more information, including how wages earned impact the weekly benefit amount.
This new wage reporting tool will be followed by more online enhancements to the bi-weekly certification questions in 2026. At that time, EDD will be updating myEDD, making those questions all easier to understand and simpler to complete accurately. EDD is continuing to modernize and transform the customer and employee experience.
EDD’s Modernization Progress So Far…
- Improved the myEDD identity-verification experience for unemployment customers by expanding the tools, information sources, and algorithms EDD uses to verify identities. EDD is piloting innovative tools from Socure that significantly improve the user experience without the need to upload documents. For those customers that do not pass the automated check, they are referred to ID.me for additional documentation.
- Launched the first phase of a new Document Management System (DMS). In phase one, mailed unemployment forms are processed faster, driving cost savings, and accelerating benefit payments. The new DMS will support more than 10 million EDD documents each year.
- Upgraded the EDD virtual assistant (chatbot) to provide claim status and payment information 24/7 for disability and Paid Family Leave claims – further strengthening the self-service features many customers desire. In just the first day alone, nearly 10,000 customers selected the new option to get claim specific updates. Similar features for unemployment customers are up next.
- Improved EDD’s virtual assistant so it’s now available 24/7 in California’s top eight languages. A pilot project for unemployment customers to chat with a live agent through the chatbot in their preferred language is underway.
- Modernized disability contact centers so Californians can check their disability or Paid Family Leave claim status 24/7 without talking to an agent. Today, more than 80 percent of customers each week report a positive experience talking with a representative and more than 831,000 customers have used a new self-serve option to get claim updates without waiting to talk to an agent.
- Streamlined the online disability benefits application with simpler questions and instructions for a faster and better customer experience. So far, about 80 percent of customers say they are satisfied with the enhanced experience, telling us it was “easy and fast to apply.”
- Made the online unemployment application shorter and easier to use. It now has fewer questions, less confusing language, and clearer instructions.
- Enhanced online eligibility questionnaires to help more than 267,000 unemployment customers resolve their eligibility issues faster and move forward with their claims. These online questionnaires are now available for all eligibility issues, avoiding the need to schedule a telephone interview.
- Now offer unemployment applications in top eight languages: Armenian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, and Vietnamese through myEDD, in addition to English and Spanish.
- Expanded EDD’s Voice of the Customer program to gather customer feedback and keep delivering EDDNext improvements that customers want.
- Launched myEDD, a safer and easier way to sign in to all benefit programs.
- Added direct deposit so benefit customers can get their payments faster and in a way that works best for them. Customers can also choose a debit card or mailed checks.