I'm not a career counselor, an employment attorney, or an HR professional. I'm in IT support, and for a while there I was also just someone who'd lost their job like anyone else. That background doesn't make me an expert. It made me pay close attention to what actually matters in the first few weeks after a layoff, and it made me want to get the numbers right.

The runway, unemployment, severance, and COBRA/Marketplace calculators here are built from real sources: state unemployment agency formulas, IRS rules on how severance and PTO are taxed, U.S. Department of Labor guidance, and HealthCare.gov's coverage rules. Every formula is shown right on the page: the inputs, the math, the result, so you can see exactly how your runway number was reached instead of just being handed one.

Before anything is published, it goes through multiple rounds of review: the math is checked, edge cases are tested, assumptions are challenged. Independent tools, including AI-assisted analysis, help catch errors or outdated figures. When something doesn't check out, it gets fixed before it goes live, not after someone relies on it.

When I was going through this, the thing that scared me most wasn't the bad news. It was not being able to see it clearly. So every assumption behind your runway estimate is visible: what counts as available money, what counts as essential spending, what your state's unemployment formula actually does with your wages. If something doesn't match your situation, you can see exactly what to change.

No calculator can tell you how long your job search will take, or what benefits will actually get approved. This one isn't built to promise certainty. It's built to give you a clear enough picture to get through the next few weeks with an actual plan instead of a knot in your stomach.

This is the most important thing on this page. Everything here is educational. It's not legal, tax, or HR advice, and it's not a substitute for talking to your state unemployment office, an employment attorney, or an HR professional, especially before you sign anything related to a severance agreement.

Use this to get a clear number and a starting plan. Then take that plan, and your questions, to the people who can speak to your specific situation and your specific state's rules. Severance and unemployment law genuinely varies enough by state and situation that a generic calculator, however careful, can't replace that conversation. It can just get you into it prepared instead of guessing.

Rules change. State unemployment formulas get updated. Healthcare and tax figures shift. When something here goes out of date or turns out to be wrong, it gets fixed. If you spot something that looks off, email me at hello@answerworth.com . I'd rather hear it from you than have it sit there quietly wrong for the next person going through what I went through.

Don't trust this number just because this site produced it. Trust it because you can see exactly how it was calculated, check the assumptions, and decide for yourself whether it fits your situation.

Want to know more about how this calculator, and the rest of the AnswerWorth network, is researched and reviewed? Read our Research & Review Process →

I hope this gets you a clearer answer faster than I got mine. And I hope you're back on your feet soon.

This website is part of the AnswerWorth network of educational decision-support websites.

I'm writing this after three months of searching, having just landed a new job and feeling genuinely excited to start, and I wanted to add a few things for anyone reading this who's still in it.

When you lose your job, it's not the end of the world, even though it can feel like it in the moment.

Losing a job can feel like a small divorce. It's a loss, and it's okay for it to hurt. Give yourself permission to actually process what's happening, your emotions, your fears, your frustration, before you try to power through it.

Once you've given yourself that space, here's what helped me:

• Get dressed like you're going to work. Take care of yourself. Structure matters more than it seems like it should.
• Reach out to everyone. Sit down and contact everyone you know who might possibly help, you'd be surprised who knows someone.
• Treat the job search like a job. Searching takes real time: reading through listings, deciding if a role is actually a fit, working through LinkedIn, Indeed, and other job boards. Don't forget to put AI job search tools to work too, they can genuinely help you cover more ground faster. Don't let the slowness of it get you down, the time it takes is normal, not a sign you're doing something wrong.
• Get your resume in shape, and don't skip the cover letter. Some people say nobody reads them. But if even one person does, you're the one candidate who took the extra step and that's worth it.

I built this site because I needed help figuring out my own options during that time. Along the way, I realized it could help other people going through the same thing too.

Wishing you a successful job search and best of luck, Huan.