How do you file an Arizona weekly unemployment claim in CACTUS?

Your first weekly claim is due starting the Sunday after you apply, even if DES has not finished processing your application. DES pays nothing for a week of unemployment you never claimed, so a skipped Friday deadline can cost you that week.

When and how to file the weekly claim

Each weekly claim covers one calendar week, Sunday through Saturday, and you file it after that week ends. The filing window opens Sunday at 12:01 a.m. and closes Friday at 6:00 p.m., Arizona time (MST). The online systems are unavailable on Saturdays. When a state holiday is observed on a Friday, the weekly claim system is closed that day and the claim is due by 6 p.m. Thursday. DES observes a Saturday holiday on the Friday before, so a Saturday holiday also moves the deadline to Thursday.

CACTUS, the Department's online claim system, lists this as certifying weekly. You can file your weekly claim these ways:

• Online in CACTUS, on the website or the CACTUS mobile app from the App Store or Google Play.
• On a computer at an ARIZONA@WORK job centre, at no cost. The staff there help with finding work; they do not handle claims.
• On paper, if you have no internet access. Ask DES to mail you the paper Weekly Claim for Unemployment Insurance Benefits form, then sign, date, and mail or fax it back every week. Mailing time slows your payment.

DES's Request to File Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims, form UIA-1060A, sends anyone who cannot use a computer, tablet, phone, or other device to one of DES's Employment Service offices or a local library first. Employment Service is DES's public program that helps people find jobs. If you still cannot file online, give a detailed reason on that form and mail or fax it to the address and numbers printed at its top to get paper weekly claims. DES's forms page lists the paper weekly claim itself as form UB-106A (UB-106A-S in Spanish), to fill in only when unemployment staff tell you to.

The Department's claims rule also lists the telephone as a way to file a weekly claim, but it lets DES limit the methods and has DES tell you how to file when you apply. DES's weekly claims page names only the Internet and a paper certification, so ask the UI Call Center before counting on a phone route.

If CACTUS locks you out or you have lost your username, the steps to get back in are on the filing page.

If you applied through the Call Center by phone, you create a PIN, and you use that PIN to file every weekly claim and to see payment information. The UI Call Center, 1-877-600-2722, gives claim status, payment details, and your balance under Option 4 of its menu.

Every question on the weekly claim is about the week you are claiming. The Department's rules have each claim report any work and wages, whether you were able to work and available for it, your work search, and any job offer you got or turned down, and then have you acknowledge your duty to report changes and sign or enter your PIN. One page asks for the employers you contacted that week.

If an answer raises an eligibility question, you may see the message "Benefits cannot be paid at this time because of an unresolved issue on your claim." The handbook says that message is not a denial, and you keep filing every week while DES looks into it. Keep filing, too, while your application is pending or an appeal is open, because a reversed denial pays only the weeks you filed. The appeals page covers the appeal itself.

If you miss a weekly claim

Weeks have to be filed in order. DES's weekly claims answers say that after missing 1 week you can still file the current week and the missed one. When your last 2 weeks were not filed on time, you may see a message saying there is no record of your Social Security number, and after more than 2 missed weeks the weekly system no longer recognizes you.

For 2 or more missed weeks, DES's pages give different routes back in:

• DES's weekly claims answers say you may reactivate your claim online, in the same CACTUS application you used to apply, while your benefit year has not expired.
• DES's page on weekly claims not filed says the late weeks are removed and you call the UI Call Center at 1-877-600-2722 to start filing again.

Try one route, and use the other if it does not get you filing again. The Department's binding rule treats a weekly claim as on time when DES receives it, or a mailed claim is postmarked, within 14 days after the week ends. The same rule excuses your first late claim in a benefit year unless DES proves the lateness was deliberate. Other late claims are refused unless the delay was DES's error or out of your reasonable control.

The waiting week and when payment arrives

Your waiting week is the first week in which you meet every eligibility rule, and DES does not pay it. It cannot be a week in which you earned your weekly benefit amount or more, a week you were ineligible for any reason, or a week before your claim's effective date.

DES gives this example. Mary is laid off on the 1st and applies that day. On the 7th she files her first weekly claim, for the week ending the 6th, which is her unpaid waiting week. Her claim for the week ending the 13th brings her first payment if she is eligible.

With no issues on your claim, the first payment normally comes after your second weekly claim, within about 10 business days. When an issue has to be settled first and you are found eligible, DES can usually process the first payment within 15 business days, and some take longer.

DES pays benefits onto the Way2Go Card issued by Comerica, which it calls the Electronic Payment Card. You are enrolled automatically, and the card should arrive by mail within a week after your application is processed. It comes in a plain envelope, so do not throw it away, and it shows a zero balance until your first payment. To switch to direct deposit, update your bank details in CACTUS. DES no longer pays by paper check, apart from a few temporary checks.

You set or reset the 4-digit PIN in CACTUS: open My Workspace, select your name, and use the PIN ID field. When a holiday falls on a Monday, payments come one business day later.

Work search: 4 contacts on 4 different days

For each week you claim, DES requires work search on at least 4 different days and at least 4 work search contacts. Arizona's unemployment statute puts it as at least one job contact a day on 4 different days. People applying for Shared Work are exempt.

Activities that count include:

• Applying to former employers, or to employers likely to hire you, and answering suitable want ads.
• Contacting or visiting employers, and going to job interviews.
• Registering with a union or professional placement office, or a temporary agency.
• Creating a résumé, uploading it to online job boards, and registering and searching for work in AZ Job Connection, the state job bank.
• Reemployment services at an ARIZONA@WORK office, including RESEA, and training at an ARIZONA@WORK location.
• Job clubs, job fairs, and networking events.

The search does not stop when you have a job lined up: DES's work search page says you must keep looking each week you file, even with a start date for a new job. The one week you need not search is a week you earn more than your weekly benefit amount, because DES pays nothing for it.

DES registers you in AZ Job Connection within 2 days after you apply, and asks you to log in and finish your profile. When you file each weekly claim, you enter that week's activities in CACTUS with as much detail as you can. Keep your own record as well: the employer's name and contact details, the person you reached, how and for what job you applied, and proof of any job board or online tool you used. DES may review your work search records for up to 2 years after your claim begins, and the handbook says DES may audit any claim at random during the benefit year.

If DES calls you to a RESEA appointment

RESEA, the Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment, can be required of any Arizona claimant. Once you are selected it is mandatory to keep receiving benefits, and DES may suspend benefits if you do not cooperate. You get a notice by mail and an email with a calendar invitation giving the details of a virtual appointment.

The meetings are one on one with a workforce specialist, by Google Meet or by phone. They cover your eligibility, skills, and barriers to work, your work search, an individual employment plan, career and labor market information, and referrals. To prepare, DES's RESEA page says to log in to AZ Job Connection, where your account already exists, create or upload a résumé there, and watch the RESEA orientation video. To ask about or reschedule an appointment, call 1-833-762-8196 and choose option 4. Workforce specialists cannot answer questions about your claim, which go to the UI Call Center at 1-877-600-2722.

Reporting earnings and going back to work

Each weekly claim asks whether you worked or earned money that week. Report your total earnings before deductions for the week you did the work, even if you have not been paid yet. That includes wages for the week you first apply, or the week you reactivate a claim after another job ends: if the last day of work you reported falls in a week you claim and you report no wages, DES sets an issue on the claim and your payment is delayed. Tips, meals, lodging, merchandise, and paid show-up or training time all count as earnings.

Earnings of up to $160.50 in a week leave your payment whole, going by DES's reported-earnings page. But a week in which your earnings equal or pass your weekly benefit amount pays no benefit at all. The benefit amounts page shows how part-time earnings change a payment. If severance, vacation, holiday, or sick pay reaches you after you applied, report it to the UI Call Center right away.

DES checks what you report: claims are audited quarterly, and new hires and rehires are reported to DES every week. Reporting earnings in the week you work is how DES says to avoid an overpayment.

If you keep filing while working part time, DES's work search page says you report that pay and still complete the work search for any week you file. When you go back to work, you simply stop filing weekly claims, and you do not need to tell DES. You still report all your earnings for any week you claim in which you worked, even if your new employer has not paid you yet. If you are out of work again while your benefit year lasts and a balance remains, reactivate your claim online or by phone. You give the name of your last employer, your new last day of work, and the reason the job ended.