2009-08-06 19:37:27 +0000
 |
No you cannot collect unemployment if you quit your job.
NOTE: If you quit your job you may not be eligible for unemployment compensation. Your eligibility depends on why you quit.
You may quit for good cause attributable to your employer.
"Attributable to your employer" means you quit because of problems related to your job. These reasons may include:
Unsafe working conditions;
A job which is damaging to your health (with medical proof). The job must either cause your illness or make your medical condition worse;
A change in working conditions that is harmful to you. For example, you may be asked to work longer hours, take a reduction in pay, or have to do very different job duties.
Your employer broke your original contract. For example, your employer did not give you a pay increase that was promised in your contract.
You may NOT get unemployment compensation if you quit your job because of a health condition not caused by the job. For example, if you had a heart attack off the job that prevents you from doing your job, you may be unable to get unemployment benefits.
Good cause does NOT include quitting because you did not like being criticized by your employer (except where there is an excessive pattern of verbal abuse that a responsible person would find offensive), quitting because you did not get a raise you asked for but had not been promised, or quitting because you lost child care for your children. If you quit without good cause, you may not be able to get other benefits from the state such as food stamps or cash assistance.
In addition, before quitting you must:
Talk with your employer about why you want to quit. You must give the employer a chance to work out the problems, unless you can show it would have been useless to have done so. For example, you may have told the employer about the problem many times and the employer did nothing about it;
Explore all other alternatives to quitting, such as taking a leave of absence. You must show that quitting was the only reasonable thing to do.
You may also quit for certain other reasons and still get benefits.
You quit to care for a seriously ill spouse, child or parent who is living with you, as documented by a licensed doctor. However, you may be eligible only AS LONG AS you are available for some employment. (For example, you are available to work during different hours or you are again able to work because you now have care for the family member during working hours). You cannot collect benefits if you are not available to work.
You quit because you lost your transportation (other than your own car) to get to and from work, AND there is no other reasonable way to get to work.
You quit to protect yourself or a child living with you from domestic violence. You may be asked to show that you tried to keep your job. The Department of Labor (DOL) calls this making "reasonable efforts" to hold onto your job. Reasonable efforts could include asking for a transfer or leave of absence before you quit. The DOL will look at each case individually.
You quit a job within 30 days of starting the job because it turned out to be "unsuitable." Reasons a job may be unsuitable include a commute that was too long, or where the job "put at risk your health, safety or morals" -- which usually means you had to travel between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. If you wait until after 30 days to quit, you will be found to have agreed to the unsuitable condition and be unable to get unemployment compensation. Exceptions are sometimes found even if more than 30 days have passed, depending on the circumstances. For example you may have good cause for quitting if you made repeated complaints about the situation or if the employer promised to fix the situation but still failed to do so.
In addition, YOU MUST be able to explain why the job is unsuitable. YOU MUST be able to explain how the conditions of the job caused you problems. YOU MUST tell your employer about the problem and try to work out the problem before quitting unless it would have been useless to have done so.
If you quit without good cause, you could be penalized.
1. If you quit without good cause you will be unable to collect unemployment compensation until you have found another job and earned ten times your benefit rate (about 5 weeks pay if you are paid what you made at your old job).
The rules about quitting are very strict. Before you quit, check with an attorney or the unemployment compensation office to make sure you have "good cause" to quit.
2. If you quit without good cause, that quitting has an impact on your eligibility for present and future Food Stamp and Temporary Family Assistance (TFA) benefits.
If you are quitting your job to relocate to another state, you cannot collect unemployment. You are voluntarily abandoning your job and income. It's a choice that you made. It is definitely not a wise decision to relocate without another job lined up. You
Was this answer helpful to you? Yes
/ No
|
Homepage 
Legal
Forum 
Law & Legal Jobs 
