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Social benefits

If you are claiming an earnings-related daily allowance for unemployment and also receive other social benefits at the same time, we usually deduct your social benefits from the amount of your earnings-related daily allowance.

There are a few exceptions, however. Some social benefits have no effect on the amount of your earnings-related daily allowance, and others prevent us from paying you an allowance altogether.

Benefits that disqualify you from receiving an earnings-related daily allowance are typically those that relate to your personal circumstances and specifically your primary status as something other than unemployed. Examples include various old-age pensions and disability benefits.

There are also social benefits that have no effect on your eligibility for an earnings-related daily allowance. Typical examples include various kinds of subsidies and expense allowances.

  • You are unemployed, and your full earnings-related daily allowance is 80 euros. You receive a child home care allowance of 650 euros per month.
  • We will need to deduct the amount of your child home care allowance from your full earnings-related daily allowance.
  • Child home care allowances are paid monthly. We will first have to work out the daily amount. We do this by taking the monthly amount and dividing it by 21.5. The daily amount of your child home care allowance therefore comes to 30.23 euros (650 euros / 21.5).
  • We then deduct the daily amount of your child home care allowance from your full earnings-related daily allowance. After the deduction, your earnings-related daily allowance comes to 49.77 euros (80 euros – 30.23 euros).
  • In a month in which there are 21 days for which you are entitled to unemployment benefits, the full rate of your earnings-related daily allowance would give you 1,680 euros (80 euros x 21 days) before tax.
  • The amount that you will receive for those 21 days after your social benefits have been deducted comes to 1,045.17 euros (49.77 euros x 21) before tax.
  • In a month in which there are 21 days for which you are entitled to unemployment benefits, receiving a monthly child home care allowance of 650 euros therefore reduces the amount of your earnings-related unemployment allowance by 634.83 euros (1,680 euros – 1045.17 euros).

  • You are unemployed, and your full earnings-related daily allowance is 80 euros. You receive a housing allowance of 800 euros per month.
  • Housing allowances do not affect your eligibility for unemployment benefits or the amount of your earnings-related daily allowance.
  • In a month in which there are 21 days for which you are entitled to unemployment benefits, the full rate of your earnings-related daily allowance gives you 1,680 euros (80 euros x 21 days) before tax.

  • You are claiming a full old-age pension.
  • We cannot pay you an earnings-related daily allowance because your status as a pensioner makes you ineligible for unemployment benefits.

Benefits that we deduct from your earnings-related daily allowance

  • child home care allowance
  • flexible care allowance
  • financial aid for studies
  • partial disability pension
  • disability benefit from another country
  • part-time pension
  • old-age pension not granted based on full years of service
  • supplementary pension provided by the employer
  • farm closure pension
  • farm closure compensation
  • compensation for loss of earnings and disability pension under the Motor Liability Insurance Act that was not granted based on full incapacity for work
  • daily allowance under the Military Injuries Act that was not granted based on full incapacity for work
  • compensation paid under the Military Accidents Act
  • an amount equivalent to the supplemental interest on a life annuity under the Workers’ Compensation Act that was not granted based on full incapacity for work
  • daily allowance and employment accident pension under the Workers’ Compensation Act that were not granted based on full incapacity for work
  • compensation for loss of earnings under the Act on Compensation for Criminal Damage
  • compensation for loss of earnings under the Patient Injury Act
  • guarantee pension if it was granted in addition to one of the above-mentioned benefits

Child home care allowance

Any child home care allowances that you receive will be deducted from the amount of your earnings-related daily allowance.

What makes child home care allowances special in the context of unemployment benefits is that we are authorised to deduct the amount from your earnings-related daily allowance even if the child home care allowance is paid to your spouse and not to you personally. This is because child home care allowances are family-specific. Even if the child home care allowance is paid to your spouse, it also benefits you.

If your spouse is a stay-at-home parent and ineligible for unemployment benefits because, for example, they also receive a maternity, paternity or parental allowance, any child home care allowance that they receive will not affect your earnings-related daily allowance, however.

This requires that your spouse actually stays at home with your child or children. If your child regularly spends even a part of the day in child care outside the home, we must deduct your spouse’s child home care allowance from your earnings-related daily allowance. We will also deduct your spouse’s child home care allowance from your earnings-related daily allowance if your spouse is studying or working part-time, whether on a self-employed or employed basis.

If you and your spouse are both claiming unemployment benefits, we will make the deduction from the unemployment benefits of the spouse to whom the child home care allowance is paid.

Benefits that do not affect your eligibility for an earnings-related daily allowance

  • survivors’ pensions
  • care allowance for disabled persons under the Disability Benefits Act
  • compensation for functional limitation under the Workers’ Compensation Act or the Agricultural Workers’ Compensation Act
  • life annuity and supplementary annuity under the Military Injuries Act
  • disability allowance under the Disability Benefits Act
  • housing allowance under the Act on Housing Allowance for Pensioners
  • housing allowance under the General Housing Allowance Act
  • child benefit under the Child Benefit Act
  • social assistance under the Act on Social Assistance
  • military allowance under the Military Allowance Act
  • reimbursements under the Workers’ Compensation Act, the Agricultural Workers’ Compensation Act or the Military Injuries Act
  • partial early old-age pension under earnings-related pension acts
  • unemployment benefit paid in the form of a mobility allowance
  • similar protected income payable on the basis of the laws of another country
  • epidemic compensation
  • voluntary pension insurance (not through an employer)

Social assistance

Any social assistance that you receive will not be deducted from your earnings-related daily allowance.

However, Kela has the right to recover any earnings-related daily allowance payments made to you while you were waiting for your unemployment benefits to officially start and were receiving social assistance from Kela.

In other words, although we do not make deductions for social assistance per se, we reserve the right to withhold from your earnings-related daily allowance any amounts that are owed to Kela on account of Kela’s having paid you social assistance as an advance towards your unemployment benefits. In such circumstances, Kela will send us a recovery notice, and we will withhold the amount owed to Kela from your earnings-related daily allowance and pay it to Kela instead. We will always give you an opportunity to express your views on the matter before we make any such payments to Kela, however.

Benefits that disqualify you from receiving an earnings-related daily allowance

  • maternity, paternity or parental allowance (also partially paid parental allowance)
  • special care allowance and special maternity allowance
  • support for education and training
  • unemployment pension
  • full disability pension granted in Finland (incapacity for work)
  • years-of-service pension
  • full old-age pension
  • early old-age pension
  • individual early old-age pension
  • guarantee pension as a supplement to pension
  • pension assistance
  • daily allowance under the Health Insurance Act (sickness allowance and partial sickness allowance; see ‘incapacity for work’)
  • daily allowance and employment accident pension under the Workers’ Compensation Act granted based on full incapacity for work (incapacity for work)
  • compensation for loss of earnings under the Motor Liability Insurance Act granted based on full incapacity for work (incapacity for work)
  • rehabilitation allowance and equivalent compensation for loss of earnings (incapacity for work)
  • farmers’ early retirement aid
  • change-of-generation pension

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