Read your package. It is taxed at 40% for your severance and your vacation payout. Vacation is usually paid out with your final paycheck if you send in your severance paperwork a full pay cycle before your last day at work. It takes the better part of a month to six weeks to get your final severance payout depending on when you submit your paperwork. It does not go through right away. You will not qualify for unemployment until your severance time runs out. So if you get six months or 26 weeks of pay, you have to wait until that date to qualify for unemployment. Also, your insurance will end on the date of of your weeks. So if it ends mid month, you will get a COBRA bill for the remaining days in the month. You are not covered for the entire month! Your effective dates for your insurance will change. If you last day is May 5, your insurance will reflect a May 5-? effective date for coverage purposes so you are truly converted to company paid COBRA even though your policy numbers do not change. Yes, life is better on the other side. Dig deep on your resume. VZW taught you some great skills and gave you some great training. It may not seem like it today. There is a company that is willing to pay you more than VZW to do a great job and will appreciate what you bring to their company.
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Last time I got laid off, the credit union talked me into rolling it into a 401k and told me I could get unemployment. It was 2-3 weeks later to start unemployment. Also if you pick up a part time job the unemployment check is smaller but payout goes on longer because the money is coming out of a set number not a set time. Hope that helps.
Wish ppl would talk truths instead of believing all the "too bad for you" lies. It's taxed at the supplementary rate just like SS commission checks. It all reconciles anyway at tax time.
Also, severance is taxed at the supplementary rate, which is 25% Federal. So the actual figure depends on state, Social Security/Medicare, and so can be under 40%
Definitely not true. I got 35 weeks of severance and got my first unemployment check after 3 weeks. In my state (and several others) if getting severance requires signing a release of claims (as it does with VZ), the severance payment doesn't count as income for the purposes of eligibility for unemployment.
Also, coverage DOES last the entire month. My last day was March 11 (should have been 10, but whatever) and insurance lasted to the end of the month. And then the free continuation lasts till the end of the year, simply because 35 weeks from April 1 takes till early Dec, and the coverage continues until the end of the month
Check your state unemployment site. In PA if the severance is below a certain threshold there's no waiting
"You will not qualify for unemployment until your severance time runs out"
This is not necessarily true. It varies from state to state and there are loopholes.