Unemployment help: Can I file if my employer won't let me go?

Depends on the cost of living. I suspect you can get by a little better on $200/week unemployment in Alabama than you can in ... say ... Jersey. Here in Cali, unemployment is much higher. But $200/week doesn't go nearly as far here as it does in the South.

 

NJ is 60% of average weekly salary in the past year up to a max of $560 per week.

 

$200 a week is about par in a "right to work" state.

As is the tactic of claiming all dismissals are "for cause" and not paying any unemployment at all.

 

max in texas is $378

 

Despite some leanings to the contrary, this is still a U.S. state. Which means a house payment of 700 bucks a month is still 700 bucks a month. gas is still 3.19 a gallon. it doesn't fluctuate. Use the credit card and you still have to pay in U.S. dollars.
200 bucks a week sucks, no matter what the cost of living. it doesn't go farther in the south, it goes quick everywhere.
So, know I love you like a brother when I say this, that's a goddamn dumb statement to say it goes farther in the south than in other places.

 

Slappy, the neighborhood 200 feet away from where I live in Cali has 3-bedroom houses on sale for $800,000. The subdivision in Georgia where I grew up is selling 5-bedroom houses (in a better neighborhood) for about $200,000.

Yes, milk and gas cost a lot everywhere. But it ain't goddamn dumb to say money doesn't go farther in the South than it does in other places. That's a big part of the reason why a lot of people are moving down there, and have been for a few decades.

 

And I'm guessing the $200/week is before taxes.

If it's like it is here, you can choose not to have them take out the taxes on your unemployment check.

But you would still have to end up paying taxes on it on April 15.

 

That assumes your boss will grant the unemployment.
In my state, your former employer has to okay the unemployment payment.
I don't know about Alabama though.

This might be a small comfort, but if you get a paycheck and you deposit it. If that check is no good and it causes checks you've written to bounce. Your employer and not you will be prosecuted for passing bad checks.
You deposited your paycheck in good faith so you aren't responsible for the bad checks.

 

Buck,
200 bucks isn't going far anywhere. To suggest it would go farther in the south is just nonsense.
Real money is one thing; 200/week for unemployment isn't. Your statement wasn't for real money, it was for the 200/week Alabama pays out even though you've been earning three, five, 10 times that...

 

Slappy is absolutely right. Making 50K a year gets you more in Bama than in Cali or NY or NJ etc.
$200 a week goes nowhere, no matter where you are

 

In buck's defense, the difference between an unemployment check that covers a third of your rent and one that covers a tenth of your rent is a big difference in how screwed you are. I don't think he meant anything more than that.

 

There should be an unemployment office somewhere near you, right? Go see them tomorrow and ask them. All states are different in regards to unemployment. In Minnesota, if you are denied unemployment benefits, you can appeal.

If you aren't getting paid, I would walk no matter what. Get a job at a fast food place, something - that's infinitely more preferable to working for free.