The aspects described herein may enable an apparatus to jointly encode two or more payloads using a single polar encoder device, while providing unequal error protection for the payloads. The apparatus causes a polar encoder to polar encode a first payload and a second payload to generate a polar encoded codeword. The polar encoder is configured to encode one or more bits of the first payload at a first reliability level and encode one or more bits of the second payload at a second reliability level, where the one or more bits of the first payload are associated with a first priority level and the one or more bits of the second payload are associated with a second priority level. The apparatus transmits the polar encoded codeword.