Unemployment Help Center
Cory from San diego asks:
How do I know if I'm eligible to file for benefits?
Statepay support representative suggests:
Your eligibility is determined primarily by two things: whether you earned enough during what the government calls your “base period” and if you’re unemployed through no fault of your own.
So what is a base period? In most states, this is the first 12 months out of the last 18 months worked. If you’ve earned enough during this period (again, “enough” is determined by the state you live in), you meet one test for eligibility.
The next, being unemployed through no fault of your own, basically means you were either laid off due to lack of work, or lost your job by being fired or quitting—but it wasn’t your fault.
If you’ve either quit or been fired it can be a little harder to prove you’re eligible, but the laws allow you to collect benefits even in these circumstances, provided you can prove no fault connected to the loss of your job.
