Who is eligible for unemployment in New Jersey?

Where you quit rather than lost the job, New Jersey law puts the burden of proof on you, the employee. A disqualification can run a matter of weeks, or it can be indefinite.

Why you are out of work

If you quit

Quitting without "good cause connected with the work" can cost you benefits. New Jersey means a reason directly related to your job, compelling enough that you had no choice but to leave. These are exceptions the Division may allow:

• Working conditions that were "unsafe, unhealthful, or dangerous" and so intolerable that you had "no choice but to leave the employment".
• Quitting, or being fired, because of domestic or sexual violence, with proof such as a restraining order, a police record, or medical documentation.
• Quitting to move with a spouse or civil union partner who is an active member of the armed forces transferred out of state, where you move within 9 months of the transfer.
• Quitting for a comparable or better job that you began within 7 days of leaving the old one.

If you were fired

A firing is reviewed for misconduct, which the Unemployment Compensation Law defines tightly: conduct that is improper, intentional, connected with your work, within your control, not a good-faith error of judgment, and either a deliberate refusal to comply with the employer's lawful and reasonable rules or a deliberate disregard of standards of behavior the employer has a reasonable right to expect.

A misconduct disqualification runs 6 weeks in total. It begins in the week your firing or suspension happened and continues for the next 5, and once it ends you may be eligible to collect.

Gross misconduct is the harder one. New Jersey treats a discharge that way when the reason was serious enough to be a crime of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th degree under the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice. The disqualification is indefinite, and no benefit rights build on wages from that employer.

If a strike or lockout put you out of work

A labor dispute does not disqualify you by itself. What matters is whether the strike or lockout caused a "stoppage of work", which New Jersey reads as an employer unable to meet 80% of its normal production of goods or services. A strike where the Division finds no lockout, and no employer breach of the collective bargaining agreement or of labor law, should leave you eligible, and the claim then carries a waiting period. On claims commencing on or after January 1, 2022 that wait is the first 14 days, and it drops away for any part of those days when your employer engages a replacement worker for your position.

Where your account and your employer's differ

The Division decides which account it accepts, and it asks you for more before it does. The questionnaire and calls that decide your claim covers the form, the phone appointment, and how long you have to answer.

Did you earn enough in your base year?

New Jersey builds the claim from wage information your employers reported over the last 18 months. Your regular base year is the first 4 of the last 5 completed calendar quarters before the week you first applied, a period covering 52 weeks. A base week inside it is a week you earned at least the base week amount in covered employment, and the year your claim begins sets which row below applies.

If the total looks short because an employer never reported wages you were paid, ask the Division for a monetary review and send pay stubs as proof of what you earned.

The alternate base years

Filing after a period of disability has its own base year. If you were laid off or terminated while collecting Temporary Disability Insurance or Workers' Compensation benefits, you may qualify for Unemployment Insurance on wages in an alternate base year set by the disability date. The Department sets conditions on it: a Workers' Compensation disability has to have begun less than 2 years before your claim date, you have to have contacted your employer after recovering and found work unavailable, and you have to have filed within 4 weeks of your recovery.

New Jersey also publishes 2 alternate base year periods for Temporary Disability and Family Leave Insurance claims, which it reviews when the regular base year is not enough for a valid claim. The first is the 4 most recently completed calendar quarters before the Sunday the claim began. The second is the 3 most recently completed quarters plus the weeks and wages in the filing quarter up to the last day of work, which comes to fewer than 52 weeks. Disability and family leave benefits covers those programs.

Being able and available for work

Able and available means that if a suitable job offer came, you could take it and begin immediately. These are the reasons New Jersey lists for finding an applicant ineligible:

• You quit your job.
• You were fired for gross misconduct.
• You are not currently available to work.
• You are not currently able to work.
• You are not actively looking for a job.
• Your disability prevents you from working.
• You are employed full time.

Looking for work is checked again every week you certify, and weekly claims has those rules.

You are also required to accept a suitable job offer, and declining one can disqualify you for 4 weeks. New Jersey treats work as suitable when it pays at least 80% of what you earned during your base year.

If you become unable to work while claiming, another New Jersey program may take over. Where an illness, injury, pregnancy, or another physical or mental health condition stops you working more than 14 days after your last day of covered employment, Disability During Unemployment may cover you instead.

Working part-time, self-employment, or gig work

Cut hours do not end a claim. Earn 20% or less of your weekly benefit rate from an employer in a week and you still receive the full rate for it; earn more than that and the payment comes down dollar for dollar against your gross wages. How much a part-time week pays has New Jersey's own worked example.

If you are self-employed and do not pay for Unemployment Insurance through your paycheck, you may not be eligible for benefits. Some workers, school employees and business owners among them, have their own qualifications.

Money you make working for yourself is reported for the week you received it, while wages from an employer are reported for the week you earned them. The dollar threshold above is written around wages from an employer.

Removing a disqualification

A disqualification for voluntarily leaving or for gross misconduct is not permanent. To clear it, you have to return to work in covered employment for at least 8 weeks, earn at least 10 times your weekly benefit rate, and then become unemployed through no fault of your own. Once you believe you have met all of that, the Division asks you to call and say so, at 732-761-2020.