Eligibility Requirements

To be eligible for unemployment benefits you must be unemployed and:

Available for work. You are willing to accept any full-time work that is suitable.
Able to work. You are physically and mentally able to do full-time work that you have performed in the past or have been trained to do.
Actively seeking suitable full-time work.
Register for work at www.MiTalent.org and visit a Michigan Works! Agency (MWA) service center, unless instructed otherwise by UIA staff.

Wage Requirements

There are also wage requirements to qualify for a claim.

To determine if you have enough wages to qualify for benefits, UIA first looks at what is called your Standard Base Period. This period includes the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters in an 18-month time period prior to when you filed your claim.

The four calendar quarters in a year are January through March; April through June; July through September; and October through December.

You must have at least one quarter in which you earned a minimum of $4,842.00.
You must have wages in at least two calendar quarters in the Standard Base Period.
Your total base period wages must equal 1.5 times your highest quarter wages.

If you do not meet the wage requirements based on your Standard Base Period, the UIA will consider your wages in the Alternate Base Period, which is the four most recently completed calendar quarters in an 18-month time period prior to when you filed your claim.

Alternate Earnings Qualifier

If you don’t meet the wage requirement in either the Standard Base Period or the Alternate Base Period, you may still be able to qualify for benefits using the Alternate Earnings Qualifier (AEQ). This means:

You must have wages in at least two quarters.
Total wages for all four quarters must equal at least 20 times the state average weekly wage (SAWW).
How that is calculated: For 2025, the SAWW is $1,292.23. So, the AEQ amount is $25,844 [20 x $1,292.23 (SAWW) = $25,844.60].

Calculating benefits

There are two ways in which your wages may qualify you for unemployment benefits:

Regular (Standard Base Period) method: There must be wages in at least two quarters in the Standard Base Period. For benefit years beginning Jan. 1, 2025, one quarter's wages must be at least $4,842; and total wages for all four quarters must equal at least 1.5 times the highest amount of wages paid in any quarter of the base period ($4,842 x 1.5 = $7,263.00).
Alternate Earnings Qualifier (AEQ) method: You must have wages in at least two quarters and total wages for all four quarters must equal at least 20 times the state average weekly wage (SAWW). For 2025, the SAWW is $1,292.23 and the AEQ amount is $25,844 [20 x $1,292.23 (SAWW) = $25,844.60].

How much you can collect each week?

Your Weekly Benefit Amount (WBA) is determined by your quarterly wages. The amount you receive in unemployment benefits is calculated by using the highest amount of wages paid to you in any base period and multiplying that by 4.1 percent. The maximum benefit payment you can receive is $446 a week.

See your Monetary Determination letter for calculations using your information.

How many weeks can you qualify for?

The number of weeks you are allowed to collect benefits is determined by multiplying your total base period wages by 43 percent, dividing by your WBA, and rounding down to the nearest half week. The minimum number of weeks is 14 and maximum number of weeks is 26.