No-Fault Unemployment

• Workers in Pennsylvania are only eligible to receive unemployment compensation if they became unemployed by no fault of their own. Pennsylvania law bars workers who were fired from their position for cause -- insubordination, truancy, incompetence -- from qualifying for unemployment compensation, and those who voluntarily terminated their employment are also ineligible. Workers must have lost their job due to downsizing, corporate restructuring, economic factors or other conditions completely unrelated to their job performance or employment decisions.
  
  

Not Covered

• Not all workers in Pennsylvania are covered by the state's unemployment compensation program. Agricultural workers who work for an employer with less than 10 employees and that pays less than $20,000 in cash wages in a quarter, and domestic servants who work for private employers that pay less than $1,000 in cash wages for a quarter, are ineligible to receive unemployment compensation. Workers employed by their son, daughter or spouse don't qualify for benefits, nor do children under the age of 18 who work for their parent.
  
  

Financial Eligibility

• Workers must have earned enough wages at their former job to qualify for benefits. The Department of Unemployment Insurance examines a worker's earnings from the four quarters prior to the quarter in which he was laid off -- approximately earnings from 15 months ago to three months ago -- to determine if the worker paid enough taxes through former employment to qualify. If the worker qualifies for unemployment compensation, his previous year's earnings are used to calculate his benefit amount.
  
  

When to Apply

• The first week a worker is unemployed is considered a "waiting week" by the Department of Labor and Industry, and workers do not receive benefits for this waiting period. Workers must wait through their waiting period before they apply an initial claim. Those who wait longer than a week to file their initial claim may lose a portion of their benefits eligibility. To apply, a worker should have ready her Social Security number, Pennsylvania driver's license, name and address of her previous employer and an employment record.
  
  

Maintaining Benefits

• After an initial claim is approved, workers must file biweekly claims to continue to receive benefits. This process involves reporting any income earned over the past two weeks. If a claimant fails to file a biweekly claim by his deadline, he may lose his benefits.