• Unemployment can strike anyone.thoughtful man image by circotasu from Fotolia.com
  
  If you wish to collect unemployment in Florida, specific rules apply. According to the Florida Handbook, you must have worked and earned wages during the first four out of the last five completed quarters. The state refers to this as your base period. Additionally, the total wages for the period must be one and one half times the wages in the quarter you earned your highest pay. Also, your wages for the base period must total $3,400.
  
  

Duration of Benefits

• According to the 2009 Florida Statutes website, you can only collect an amount that equals 25 per cent of the total wages in your base period that you made while working. This figure is not to exceed $7,150. This gives you 26 weeks to collect monies before your benefits run out.
  
  

Weekly Benefit Amount

• As the Florida Senate website points out, your weekly benefit amount will equal 1/26 of your total wages for all insured work paid during the pay period in which your wages were at their highest level. These figures are never to fall below $32, and never to rise above $275.
  
  

Job Search

• The Florida Senate website says that you are to report to the Agency for Workforce Innovation weekly. The agency has a legal obligation to track who is honestly looking for work and who is not. You must show that you have not turned down an offer for suitable work and that you continue to be available for employment. The Unemployment Handbook says that in order for you as an unemployed Floridian to keep receiving benefits, you must keep a record of all of the contacts you have made for employment. You must report this information on Work Search Form AWI-UC 20A, which is part of the Florida Unemployment Compensation Booklet you will receive when you file for unemployment.
  
  

Reason for Unemployment

• The Florida Unemployment Handbook suggests that your eligibility for unemployment hinges on factors such as whether you voluntarily quit and, if it was not a voluntary quit, whether it was due to an illness, a layoff or a disciplinary firing due to misconduct. If your separation from your employer resulted from inefficiency or poor job performance, these are not considered categories of misconduct; thus you still are eligible for benefits. However, if your employer fired you for lying, stealing or insubordination, Florida law does consider these areas of misconduct and it will negatively affect your eligibility for benefits.