Damn, so I am pretty much SOL. Nothing I can do in FL?
Damn, so I am pretty much SOL. Nothing I can do in FL?
I thought about that. It's just tough with a 1 year old, not having a place to live and I do not plan on staying in NE after last years storm. 31 years is enough for me! Oh well, I am going back to school for a certificate which will help me in the long run. I will continue job hunting in the meantime! Thanks again for the advice.
When you've been working in MA and you leave that job and file anywhere, even if you file the claim in FL, it will still be a MA claim, good for whatever your old state pays in unemployment benefits, etc. And in your case, this is a very good thing in regards to unemployment. While there is no "trailing spouse" allowance in MA, in other words, quitting your job to relocate with a non military spouse who has gotten another job isn't considered a valid reason to quit your job and get approval for unemployment, you'll still have a full set of base period wages in Massachusetts, which is one of the most generous weekly benefit amount states in the whole country.
What I would do, as soon as you get to Florida and have an address, file a claim for unemployment. This will be an "interstate" claim, will be based on your earnings from your job in MA, and will be quite a large chunk of change, compared to Florida's princely sum of $275 per week, max, IF you can get through their horrible and convoluted sign up system to get a claim set up and get through that terrible understaffed underperforming claims system.( Welcome to the southeastern third world part of the USA. I'm not real sure that giving up blizzards for their kind of state services is worth it.) But anyway.....
File the MA claim through the FL system, which they will know how to do, pulling in all the wages from the base period employer and connecting you with the MA interstate claims unit. This what you will have to do. You always file in the state you are going to live in. Eventually, they'll get you a claim set up and you'll have a decision made by MA interstate appeals about whether or not you can draw benefits. It will more than likely be a no, the trailing spouse thing. But that claim will stay in effect for one full year from the date of filing.
Now, quickly, get out and find yourself some temporary employment in your new home. Work enough to make 10x the amount of your weekly benefit amount on the MA claim. Then the job ends, or you are laid off (through no fault of your own.) You re open your unemployment claim and bingo, the disqualification is removed, and you have a nice claim set up to draw a maximum of 26 weeks during the original benefit year of MA weekly benefits. They may even have some school benefits available for you or way they can help you use your unemployment while attending retraining.
But file that claim, get it set up, and then begin picking up all the temporary work you possibly can. That will be the key, you've got to take something and work at it and make some weeks of wages and then be out of work through no fault of your own, and then the unemployment button is pushed on the MA claim.
MA does allow for quitting to care for a family member ...not clear if you are to be a care giver or not....
It is quite clear that the WIFE is the one who is going to be the care giver.
If he files the claim, they'll settle the caretaker issue, as far as unemployment is concerned, anyhow![]()
Why? He can just as easily file in MA through the internet. While MA may be slow, FL's adminstration of a claim leaves a lot to be desired.
Why? There is no legal requirement to do so. I tell people to file the claim in the state with the more forgiving UI system as in forum shop. I've had people get some very pleasant surprises.
Even based on what you're telling him to do, it makes even more sense to file in MA. If he's successful at getting a temp job in FL with a qualifying separation to purge any disqualification, he'll be able to draw his 30 weeks of MA benefits, and THEN when that runs out, he'll be able to use his MA lag earnings plus the FL earnings to get a 2nd back-to-back claim even though the FL claim will pale in comparison.
Yes, one can just as easily file in one state as another. I tell them to file in the state they are planning to live in because then you have no complications about changing addresses or reporting for work searches and call ins, as most people are required to do.
If this person files in MA on line, using his MA address, there will be an address change quickly, and that will take time and be an issue. If he tried to file it in Massachusetts and use his FL address, it will be delayed as they pick up on this, and he will have complications due to work registration requirements and profiling requirements, as he will already have been instructed to report and begin his work search in Massachusetts. They'll have to change his address, change his local office and verify that he has registered for work in the new state.
Every state has an interstate unit that connects back and forth with other states. Usually these systems are more efficient than the run of the mill state claims systems, as the people who work in them are more specialized, less likely to be new employees.
This person could not set up a Massachusetts claim, with only Massachusetts wages in Florida and have it adjudicated by Florida law even if he files on the Florida website. There is no good in filing in a state where you think they are "most forgiving" as you cannot be adjudicated by the laws of the state you are filing in if you are not setting up a claim in that state's system.
Each state system has an appeals system that connects with the other states He will get a decision from Massachusetts, made by a MA adjudicator, using MA law even if he files in Florida.
Where he files the original claim has nothing to do with whether or not he gets to draw a MA claim and then draw another second series claim on combined wages from FL and MA. It's where his wages are coming from, not where he is filing that makes the claim.
There's still bad employees working in those units too. Had a claimant that lived in TX and worked in a small TX satellite office of a LA employer. The TWC employees really pressured the claimant, "just go file in LA. I can see the wages there. You can have your claim right now." Had the claimant not fought the good fight that required an appeal she'd have been out $200/wk because of the lower LA benefit amount.
I could a post link to a real life story, but it would probably get deleted. Was it mistake, maybe, but it was in the claimant's favor and I never heard another word about an overpayment issue.
While the situations may be rare, they've involved earnings of federal employees that had multiple state addresses available to them, people that had wages from different states in the base period, and employees of companies that didn't necessarily report their taxes to the right state.
On the flip side, I could post another link to a story of how applying in the wrong state turned into a mess especially when it came to an EUC issue and the claimant had no traction as each state pointed the finger at the other. It was a costly lesson.
With the threads I've seen from claimants on UI in FL, there is NO way I'd let a FL UI worker touch my claim unless it was the only choice available to me.