Top Tips on unemployment benefits

Feb. 3, 2008

Tip #1: If you’re denied unemployment, you MUST file your appeal within 30 days
If you’ve never been laid off or fired or quit a job before, the whole area of unemployment benefits might seem like a confusing quagmire.
So here are some tips from Deb Fragel, a Traverse City benefits advocate who helps people appeal the denial or retraction of unemployment benefits.
Most people who have been fired or laid off are eligible to collect unemployment benefits — even people who have been fired for incompetence or poor judgment, said Fragel, an unemployment appeals specialist with Great Lakes Credit Care.
If you’ve missed too much work due to circumstances beyond your control, you’re also eligible for benefits. On the other hand, if you routinely party too late and like to sleep in, benefits aren’t likely, she said.
You are not eligible if the employer can prove that you’ve shown “a willful, wanton disregard for an employers’ interest,” she said.
Can you get benefits if you quit a job? The answer is: maybe.
The law says that you’re eligible if you have “good cause attributable to the employer,” Fragel said.
Good cause means the “employer did something they shouldn’t have or didn’t do something they should have,” such as bounced your paycheck or sexually harassed you. If sexual harassment is coming from a supervisor, you have the right to quit immediately; if it’s a fellow worker, the requirement is that you have to inform your employer of the problem and give him/her a reasonable time to remedy it. If it still continues, you can leave and remain eligible for unemployment.
Other reasons to quit: if the area of your business becomes crime-ridden and dangerous or if your pay or hours are cut by 17% or more.
What if your boss is verbally abusing you? That one is hard to win, Fragel said.

ANSWERING A CHALLENGE
Let’s say you’ve applied for unem-ployment benefits but were denied. Or perhaps you’ve been collecting unemployment benefits for a few months, and suddenly your employer “challenges” the benefit and you’re facing the prospect of having to repay all the benefits you’ve already received, Fragel said.
Don’t assume all is lost. You can go to an administrative hearing, and possibly get the denial or challenge reversed. But you must make an appeal within 30 days of the denial or challenge.
“Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” Fragel said. “Some employers will appeal every single claim on absolutely no grounds because if the employee doesn’t show up at the hearing, they automatically win.
“The people flying the desks in Lansing or Detroit are overworked. If I can get the employee to a hearing level, I can often get the decision changed. The clerks don’t always get it right. I just did four hearings this morning, and three were reversed.”
“The type of case I’m getting lately is that people are getting a part-time
job on top of their full-time job, then they quit because it’s too stressful to do two jobs …
“Yesterday, I represented this gal who worked at a part-time job cleaning once a week, and she also worked full-time at a construction office, where she was laid off. She was denied benefits because she quit the cleaning job. But the state looks at all the employers paying a portion of your unemployment in a benefit year, and she should receive benefits from both employers.”
Fragel won the case and the denial was overturned.
She has also represented clients who were ordered to pay restitution for unemployment benefits that they should never have received.
“If it’s an agency mistake in paying the claimant, that person might not have to pay it back,” Fragel said.
Most people who are denied benefits never file an appeal because it seems so complicated. Indeed, it’s a bureaucratic process — determination, re-determination and an appeal with an administrative law judge (advocacy help is provided for free up to this point). From there it can go all the way to circuit court, said Fragel, who can also privately represent a client.
“Most people don’t even attempt to appeal because they just get tired,” Fragel said. “But I think more people would if they knew of someone who could help them — I’ll always take phone calls. Always.
“It’s very complicated, but people don’t have to know all the ins and outs — that’s my job, that’s the advocate’s job. They just need to know help is out there.”