Unemployed lawyer gets benefits yanked over $1 a day blogging
Unless you happened to be a very popular blog network like I Can Has Cheezeburger the chances of making a living strictly from running Google AdSense is next to impossible. However the idea that earning a $1.30 a day from AdSense could cost you your unemployment benefits makes one wonder if being honest with the government is a wise idea.
Forbes has the story of Karin (she asked that her last name not be published) an unemployed lawyer who had recently graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law and decided to start up a blog in April to help keep her busy while she studied for the Missouri bar exam. She had moved there when New York got to be just too expensive. It is important to note as Forbes did that in the US it is common, and legal, for the unemployed to receive jobless benefits from the state where they last worked, even after moving to a new state as in the case of Karin.
Her blog, STL Meal Deals, was where she wrote about local restaurant promotions and like most bloggers figured it wouldn’t hurt to run some Google AdSense ads on it. The only problem is that it has cause Karin a very big problem. Knowing that when the check arrived that she was legally obligated to inform New York State of the income Karin did just that.
It was after Karin notified the Department of Labor of her AdSense income that the confusion started. New York cut her weekly benefits to $300 and sent her a form to fill out and send to her employer. Unsure whether Google was considered her employer, Karin called the DOL to get an answer. She says a state official told her she shouldn’t have claimed the AdSense payment as income because it was “residual,” meaning a payment made for services previously rendered. New York does not regard residual income as employment pay that could make someone ineligible for unemployment benefits.
The call prompted Karin to file another claim with the state and to attach a letter stating she was running a blog and that the Google AdSense revenue it generated was her only source of income. A few days later, she received a letter from the DOL informing her that it had launched an investigation of her “business” to determine whether she remained eligible for benefits.
So for now Karin remains without her jobless benefits and has pulled the AdSense ads from her blog.
“It’s frustrating that nobody seems to have a straightforward answer,” she says. “It’s even more frustrating that trying to work and generate additional income, while being straightforward and honest about that income, is treated with suspicion and punished.”
Oh, and her income from the AdSense ads: $238.75
