Coronavirus Unemployment Benefits Resources

Some of the people we’ve talked to are unemployed or have fewer working hours because of the Coronavirus. Everyone is being affected a little bit differently these days. 

Federal And State Unemployment Benefits

First off, if your income has been ended or lowered, you want to file for unemployment.

There is Federal and State benefits you can get for your situation. We have a link about how to apply here.

Also specific to your state, there is a link for you. 

Please be sure you are getting your benefits. I believe it takes about a week if you are eligible.

Make sure this is one of the first things you are doing.  Some companies are laying off workers with the intent to bring them back when they can.  By doing this, the employees can file for unemployment benefits to receive some portion of their income rather than nothing.

Retirement Account Contribution Pause

Today you probably have money coming out of your paycheck.

Normally we have taxes taken out, health insurance taken out, and 401K or Roth 401K contributions taken out. When you take money out of your paycheck, you don’t have it available to spend when cash flow is tight.

But during this time if you need cash flow, one of the things you can do is actually STOP those contributions going out of your paycheck. You can keep those in your bank account.

Once you start working again and back to normal, you can restart those retirement contributions.

It’s tricky because we hate to tell you to stop doing things that help you get towards your retirement goals, but it can be necessary for some to help you in the meantime. You can change it for now, but once back to normal, start up again. Everyone is in a different situation right now and this might make a big difference for you!

Tax-Loss Rebalancing

There is also tax-loss rebalancing. You can take those stocks that haven’t been growing and sell them with little or no gain. This allows you to rebalance your portfolio now.  Just a few months ago you may have wanted to sell a stock but hesitated to do so because there would be a taxable gain.  Now with the market volatility you may be able to sell those stocks and diversify them without incurring any taxable gains.

Get A Second Opinion

Is there anyone you could go to during this time?

If you don’t have a financial advocate in your corner, get a second opinion on what’s going on in your financial life!

For anyone who has an account and isn’t working with an advisor, reach out to us and see if you need to make changes.

We do have an hourly rate. We can help people during these volatile times.

Sometimes The Best Thing, Is To Do Nothing

The other thing you can do is to do nothing.

The market does move through cycles and the best thing you can do during those times is nothing. We are watching and communicating to you this entire time to let you know where things are at. Feel free to watch our videos and weekly email for these announcements. We are always sharing what we are thinking and reading to provide resources for you.

Once our economy gets back up and running, you can enter back into the job market and get back to the things you were doing before. We are seeing China get back into normalcy right now and we can expect to see that for us too.

Contact us if you’d like to talk about how the Coronavirus affects your finances.

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Wondering how this affects your future finances? Schedule a call with Financial Design Studio, financial advisors in Deer Park, to discuss your portfolio today.