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| Able, Available and Actively Seeking Work | In order to be eligible for unemployment benefits, an individual must be physically able to work, available to work and actively looking for work each week and have no restrictions to prevent acceptance of suitable work. |
| Additional Initial Claim (AIC) | A notice of new unemployment claim filed at the beginning of a second or subsequent period of eligibility when a break of one week or more has occurred in the claim series with intervening employment. |
| Additional Intervening Employment (AIE) | Claim filed when a claimant has had employment since filing his last claim within the existing benefit year, but that employment did not cause a break in the claim series. |
| Adjudication | Process used to resolve issues such as separation, suitable work issues, able and available, self-employment, physical disability, availability for work, controlled substances, and other issues that affect a claimant’s eligibility. |
| Agent State | The State in which a worker claims benefits against another (liable) state through the facilities of the State Employment Security Agency. |
| Appeal | A request for a review by an appeals authority of a determination on a claim for benefits, on a status report, or on an employer’s contribution rate or a request for a review by a higher appeals authority of a decision made by a lower appeals authority. |
| Attached Claim | A claim filed by an individual who is either partially or totally unemployed because of lack of work during a payroll week as established by his/her employer, but the individual retains his attachment to the payroll and work force of that employer. |
| Average Weekly Wage | The quotient obtained by dividing the total of the wages reported by all insured employers by the monthly average insured employment during the immediately preceding calendar year and further dividing the quotient by 52 to obtain a weekly rate. |
| Base Period | The first four of the last five completed calendar quarters prior to the effective date of the claim. |
| Benefit Balance | The unpaid portion of the total benefits payable with respect to a claimant’s unemployment during a given benefit year. |
| Benefit Rights Interview | Informative interview to explain benefit rights and responsibilities, as well as, information about the monetary and nonmonetary eligibility requirements that must be met to establish a claim. |
| Benefit Year | The 52-week period beginning with the effective date of a valid claim. |
| Cell | The most basic SIC/area/size class for which OES samples are drawn or estimated. |
| Combined Wage Claim (CWC) | Claims for individuals who had base period earnings in more than one state. Such individuals may elect to file a combined wage claim that consolidates earnings from two or more states to pay benefits. |
| Commission Approved Training(CAT) | Allows eligible claimants who have limited marketable skills and who meet the criteria set forth by law to receive unemployment insurance benefits while attending training, without being subject to the availability and work search requirements of the law. An industrial institute or a business school may provide approved training. The local office manager approves the training and advises the training facility of required actions and procedures. |
| Computation Date, Experience-Rating | Under a pooled fund law, the date as of which employers’ experience with respect to unemployment or unemployment risk is measured for the purpose of determining contribution rates; or, under a reserve account law, the date as of which the balances in employers’ reserve accounts are determined for the purpose of rate computation (August 1). |
| Continued Claim | Certification of eligibility for benefits during a seven-day period (calendar week) of total, partial, or part-total unemployment. |
| Contribution Rate | The basic rate of employer contributions from which variations are computed under the experience rating provisions. |
| Covered Employment | Employment covered by the Employment Security Law including any work for which wages are paid by: (1) an employer who has one or more workers in any twenty weeks during a calendar year, or whose payroll is $1,500 or more during a calendar quarter; (2) an agricultural employer who has ten or more workers in any twenty weeks during a calendar year, or who pays $20,000 or more in wages in any calendar quarter; (3) an employer who pays $1,000 or more for domestic service during any calendar quarter; (4) state and local governments; (5) non-profit elementary and secondary schools. |
| Disaster Unemployment Experience Rating | Provides temporary unemployment benefits to workers in geographic areas where the federal government has determined that disaster conditions exist and the President has issued a disaster proclamation. |
| Dislocated Workers | Claimants who are: (1) totally separated from employment, (2) eligible for unemployment benefits, (3) unlikely to return to their previous occupation or industry, and (4) likely to exhaust their unemployment benefits before returning to work. |
| Disposable Income | Income plus transfer payments minus taxes. |
| Duration | The number of weeks a claimant can receive his full weekly benefit amount. Minimum duration is 13 weeks; maximum duration is 26 weeks or until the maximum benefit amount is exhausted. This is computed by dividing the total base period wages by the high quarter wages and then multiplying the result by eight and two-thirds. |
| Earnings Allowance | The maximum amount a claimant may earn in a compensable week before any deduction is made from his weekly benefit amount. It is computed by dividing the claimant’s high quarter wages by 13, multiplying this result by ten percent (0.10), and rounding any amount which is not a whole dollar down to the next lower whole dollar. (Approximately 20% of the Weekly Benefit Amount.) |
| Eligibility Review Interview | Process to assist claimants in overcoming one or more recognized barriers to reemployment. Automatically scheduled every four weeks to evaluate the claimant’s continuing eligibility, present information about continuing eligibility requirements and the local labor market, and to develop a Work Search Plan. |
| Employed | All persons who worked for pay or profit, or worked without pay for 15 hours or more per week in a family farm or business. Includes agricultural employment, nonagricultural wage and salary employment, unpaid family workers and domestic workers in private households. In the federal/state cooperative statistical programs funded in each state by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only persons employed during the payroll period which includes the 12th of the month are counted. |
| Establishment | An economic unit, such as a mine, factory or store which produces goods or provides services. It is usually at a single physical location and engaged in one or predominantly one type of economic activity for which a Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code is applicable. |
| Estimate | A numerical value which is obtained from a sample and which, by inference, is assigned as the value of a population parameter. |
| Estimation | The process of making inferences, based on sample data, about the numerical value of a population parameter. |
| Exhaustees | Beneficiaries who deplete their maximum annual benefits in a benefit year. |
| Experience Rating | A method for determining the contribution rates of individual employers on the basis of the factors specified in the Employment Security Law for measuring employers’ experience with respect to unemployment or unemployment risk. |
| Extended Benefits (EB) | This program, which automatically goes into effect during periods of high unemployment, provides claimants with an extension of their regular unemployment benefits. The beginning date, duration and ending date of this program are "triggered" by a specified unemployment rate during a specified period of time. |
| Fact-finding Interview | A face-to-face discussion between a claimant and a claims examiner for the purpose of obtaining from the claimant a statement concerning a specific eligibility or disqualification issue. This differs from a periodic interview in that a specific issue must exist as a result of a statement made by either the claimant, the liable state, an employer, or the Employment Service staff of the Agency. |
| Final Payments | Last regular benefit a claimant receives in a benefit year because the claimant has no further entitlement to payment, i.e., has exhausted entitlement by drawing the full amount of benefits from State trust funds or UCFE or UCX program funds. |
| First Payments | The first benefit payment for the earliest compensable week in the benefit year. |
| HUD Median Family Income | Calculation of median income in which the current year estimates are based on census median family income estimates updated to the current year with a combination of Bureau of Labor Statistics earnings and employment data and Census Divisional P-60 median family income data. |
| Incommuters | Workers residing outside a county. Workers who commute to work into this county from another county. |
| Initial Claim | Includes New Initial Claims (NIC), Additional Initial Claims (AIC), and Transitional Initial Claims. |
| Insufficient Wage Credits | During a monetary determination, either no wage credits could be located or insufficient wage credits (or employment) were available to satisfy the eligibility requirements of the state law. |
| Interstate Benefit Payment Plan (IB) | Provides unemployment insurance for persons who worked in another state during the base period. North Carolina acts as the Agent State; the other state is the liable state, which actually pays the benefits. |
| Job Training Partnership Act(JTPA) | Public law 97-300 enacted the Job Training Partnership Act for the purpose of establishing " ... programs to prepare youth and unskilled adults for entry into the labor force and to afford job training to those economically disadvantaged individuals and other individuals facing serious barriers to employment, who are in special need of such training to obtain productive employment". |
| Labor Force | Estimate that represents the sum of the employed and unemployed persons by place of residence. |
| Labor Force Participation Rate | Percentage of working-age population who are members of the labor force. |
| Liable State | Any state against which a worker claims benefits through the facilities of the Employment Security Agency of another (agent) state. |
| Low Income | Eighty percent of the median family income for the area, subject to adjustments for areas with unusually high or low incomes or housing costs. |
| Mail Claim | A claim filed by mail instead of being filed by a claimant in person at an Employment Security Commission office. |
| Maximum Weekly Benefit Amount | The highest weekly benefit amount provided for a week of total unemployment. |
| Median Income | The income value that falls in the middle of the income distribution ranked from lowest to highest. That is, it determines two equal groups, one having incomes above the median, and the other having incomes below the median. The medians for households, families and unrelated individuals are based on all households, families and unrelated individuals. The medians for persons are based on persons aged 15 or over with income. |
| Minimum Weekly Benefit Amount | The lowest weekly benefit amount for a week of total unemployment. |
| Monetary Determination | See Wage Transcript and Monetary Determination. |
| New Initial Claim | The first claim filed by an unemployed individual requesting a determination of entitlement to and eligibility for compensation. A new claim generates an appealable monetary determination of eligibility, benefit amount and duration. |
| Non-Covered Employment | Excluded employment, or employment for an employer below the size-of-firm coverage requirements of the State Employment Security law. |
| Non-Monetary Determination | A determination as to whether a claimant is barred from receiving benefits or waiting-period credits for reasons other than those affecting his insured status. |
| Noncommuters | Workers in county of residence. Workers who do not leave their county of residence for work. |
| Nonseparation Issues | Issues such as suitable work, eligibility, and able and available that do not involve the separation of employment. |
| North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) | Federally financed program providing benefits to certain American workers who are unemployed due to trade with Canada or Mexico. Individuals receiving benefits under this program must be enrolled in an approved training course. |
| North American Industry Classification System (NAI | An industry classification system which groups establishments into industries based on the activities in which they are primarily engaged. This is a comprehensive system covering the entire field of economic activities. Statistical agencies in Canada, Mexico and the United States developed the system to facilitate economic analysis of the economies of the three countries. This coding structure replaces the Standard Industrial Classification system. |
| Outcommuters | Workers outside county of residence. Workers who travel outside their county of residence for work. |
| Part-Total Unemployment | Occurs when a separated claimant reports earnings from casual or part-time work that is sufficient to reduce his weekly benefit amount. |
| Partial Unemployment | Occurs when a payroll attached claimant, working all available hours, still works or is paid "less than three customary scheduled full-time days", or less than 60 percent of the customary scheduled full-time hours, and his/her earnings are sufficient to reduce the weekly benefits. |
| Per Capita Income | The mean income computed for every man, woman and child in a particular group. It is derived by dividing the total income of a particular group by the total population in that group. |
| Periodic Interview Program (PI) | Interviews scheduled usually every four weeks for claimants that face no immediately identifiable barriers to employment. |
| Poverty | An indicator of the number and proportion of people with inadequate family incomes for needed consumption of food and other goods and services. Currently only has been updated for inflation. |
| Poverty Guideline | Income figure issued each year by the Department of Health and Human Services and is used in determining eligibility for certain government programs. The guidelines are a simplification of the poverty thresholds for use for administrative purposes. |
| Poverty Threshold | The cost of a minimum diet times three to allow for expenditures on all other goods and services. The multiplier of three represented the after-tax money income of the average family in 1955 relative to the amount it spent on food. The thresholds differ by the number of adults and children in a family and, for some family types, by the age of the family head. |
| Profiling | A program to provide early recognition of and early intervention with those claimants identified as dislocated workers. See Dislocated Workers. |
| Redetermination | A determination made with respect to a claimant after reconsideration by the initial determining authority. |
| Reference date | The date for which the respondents are requested to submit data. |
| Reopened Claim | A certification to the beginning date of a subsequent claim series within an established benefit year. There are three types of reopened claims: additional initial claims (AIC), additional intervening claims (AIE), and no intervening employment (NIE). |
| Respondent | A member of the population defined on the sampling frame as one entity and consisting of either a single establishment or a group of establishments. |
| Sample Unit | A sample unit for which response to the request for usable data is received. |
| Sample Weight | A numerical value, assigned to a sample unit for use in estimation. |
| Sampling Frame | A frame from which the sample units are actually selected. The primary source for the sampling frame in OES is the state’s Unemployment Insurance file. |
| Separated Unemployment | Individual is out of work for an indefinite period and has no attachment to the payroll or work force of any employing unit. An individual in this category may be totally or part-totally unemployed during a claim week. |
| Separation Issues | Claimants who are disqualified because of separation issues may be denied benefits indefinitely (for the duration of the claimant’s unemployment) or, in the case of substantial fault attributable to the claimant, for a designated number of weeks (time certain disqualification). |
| Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) | A system of classifying an establishment based on the type of activity performed at the establishment, for purposes of facilitating the collection, tabulation, presentation, and analysis of data relating to establishments, and for promoting uniformity and comparability in the presentation of statistical data. This system utilizes a four-digit code number for individual industries. Each digit represents a different level of aggregation of the industries. |
| Total Unemployment | A week of unemployment in which the individual irrespective of job attachment, has no earnings or has earnings that do not reduce the weekly benefit amount. When used in calculating the unemployment rate, the Bureau of Labor Statistics sponsored Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) Program defines total unemployment as those persons with no earnings who are actively seeking during the survey week, which is the week that includes the 12th of the month. |
| Transfer Payments | Income payments to persons, generally in monetary form, for which they do not render current services. |
| Transitional Claim | A claim filed to request a determination of eligibility and establishment of a new benefit year having an effective date within the seven-day period immediately following the benefit year ending date and a week for which compensation or waiting period credit was claimed (one of three types of initial claims). |
| Trust Fund (Federal) | A fund established in the Treasury of the United States which contains all moneys deposited with the Treasury by State Employment Security Agencies to the credit of their unemployment fund accounts and by the Railroad Retirement Board to the credit of the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Account. |
| Trust Fund (State) | A special fund established under a State Employment Security law for the receipt and management of contributions and the payment of Unemployment Insurance benefits. |
| Unemployed | Estimated number of residents who did not work at all during the month but were able, available and looking for work. Includes all jobless persons looking for work, regardless of whether or not they qualify for unemployment insurance benefits. When used in calculating the LAUS Program unemployment rate the count of these individuals is for the week that includes the 12th of the month. |
| Unemployment Compensation For Ex-Servicemembers (UCX) | Federally financed program to provide unemployment insurance benefits to claimants whose recent work experience includes military service. Military wage credits are assigned to the state where the UCX claimant files a "first" claim. These wage credits may be combined with wage credits from other base period work (such as regular UI) to establish a claim and pay benefits. |
| Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) | Federally financed program to provide unemployment insurance benefits to individuals who worked in federal civilian service during the base period. These wage credits may be combined with wage credits from other base period work (such as regular UI) to establish a claim and pay benefits. |
| Unemployment Rate | The average annual number of unemployed as a percentage of the average annual civilian labor force. |
| Universe | The entire group of units which a survey is supposed to cover. |
| Very Low Income | Fifty percent of the median family income for the area, subject to specified adjustments for areas with unusually high or low incomes. |
| Wage Transcript and Monetary Determination | A Wage Transcript and Monetary Determination is a written determination which itemizes wages and employers in the base period, the weekly benefit amount, duration, and effective date of the claim, etc. |
| Waiting Period | The first eligible continued claim (one which would otherwise be compensable) for total, partial, or part-total unemployment in a benefit year. No payment is made. |
| Weekly Benefit Amount (WBA) | The amount of money a claimant can receive each week. It is calculated by dividing the sum of the wages earned during the highest quarter of the base period by 26. |
| Work Search Plan | Formalizes the claimant’s intended course of action to obtain employment by documenting the actions agreed to during an Eligibility Review Interview. |
| Working-Age Population | Corrected census count of those individuals 16 years of age and older. |
