Unemployment insurance is designed to provide you money between jobs when you lose your job through no fault of your own, but is there ever a case where you can receive unemployment payments even when you resigned? Yes there are. There are not very many (and they vary by state–remember unemployment is a state decision, not a federal one), but they do exist.
If you’re contemplating quitting your job, and wonder if you could possibly get unemployment payments, here are four times when it’s possible.
Valid personal reason
If your wife is in the military and is transferred from Florida to Idaho, and you quit your job to follow her, you’ll be eligible for unemployment payments from Florida. (You always get the payment from the state you worked in.) If you live in California and quit your job to follow your spouse for any job, you can be eligible there–but in Florida, it has to be a military job that triggered the relocation. Each state has their own rules, but here is a list of which states offer unemployment for trailing spouses.
To read the other three reasons, click here: I Quit My Job: Can I Get Unemployment?
Yeah, I hadn’t been aware that that first reason was valid, but we just had a former employee who resigned (of his own free will, not a forced resignation) to follow his wife to a far-flung state get unemployment. Which the state will pay him for, but we are not going to see an increase in OUR rates, since it wasn’t our fault. It’s my understanding that there are two “buckets” for unemployment claim money–layoffs, firings, etc., where it is the employer’s choice to terminate employment do affect the employer’s rates in the future (but they don’t actually get a bill for the payments or anything, like some people seem to think), but some claims are granted to the employee without actually dinging the employer. Luckily. 🙂
thanks for this information, usefull