Can You Get Unemployment If Fired in Minnesota?

You can get unemployment if you were fired in Minnesota, unless the state decides you were fired for what the law calls employment misconduct. A firing by itself is not a disqualifier. The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) looks at why the job ended, and only certain reasons cost you your benefits. The weekly maximum is currently $948, payable for up to 26 weeks, so whether DEED classifies your termination as misconduct matters a great deal.

Firings That Still Qualify for Benefits

Plenty of firings have nothing to do with misconduct. If your position was eliminated, if the company was downsizing or short on work, or if your employer simply decided you weren’t the right fit, you remain eligible. The same is true when you were let go for poor performance that came from a genuine inability to do the job rather than carelessness or willful behavior. Being told you’re fired doesn’t answer the eligibility question; the reason does.

What Counts as Employment Misconduct

Minnesota Statutes Section 268.095 defines employment misconduct as intentional, negligent, or indifferent conduct that seriously violates the standards of behavior an employer has a right to reasonably expect. The conduct can occur on the job or off, so long as it is connected to your employment.¹

In practice, misconduct findings often involve things like showing up under the influence, stealing from the employer, refusing a reasonable and direct order, repeated no-call no-shows, harassing coworkers, or deliberately ignoring known duties. The common thread is that the worker knew, or should have known, the behavior was wrong and did it anyway.

One point works in the fired worker’s favor: if the termination involved a single incident rather than a pattern, the statute requires that fact to be weighed when deciding whether the conduct was serious enough to be misconduct.¹ A one-time lapse is harder to cast as misconduct than a repeated one.

What Does Not Count as Misconduct

Subdivision 6(b) of the statute carves out ten categories of behavior that cannot be treated as employment misconduct, even if your employer used them as the reason for the firing. If the reason you lost your job falls into any of these, you should still qualify:

Inefficiency or inadvertent mistakes, including honest poor performance that isn’t deliberate.
Simple unsatisfactory conduct that doesn’t rise to a serious rule violation.
Good faith errors in judgment when judgment was called for.
Inability or incapacity, such as lacking the skill or physical ability to do the work.
Conduct an average, reasonable employee would have engaged in under the same circumstances.
Conduct caused by mental illness or impairment.
Conduct caused by a substance use disorder, unless you had prior diagnosis or treatment and failed to make consistent efforts to control the condition.
Absences due to your own illness or injury, provided you gave proper notice.
Absences to care for an immediate family member who is ill, injured, or disabled, with proper notice.
Conduct stemming from you or an immediate family member being a victim of domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking.

These protections come straight from Section 268.095.¹ An employer’s label doesn’t override them; what matters is what actually happened.

Aggravated Employment Misconduct

Minnesota also recognizes a more severe category. Aggravated employment misconduct means you committed an act that would amount to a gross misdemeanor or felony and that act had a significant adverse effect on your employment. You do not need to be charged or convicted for DEED to make this finding, though a conviction creates a presumption that the act occurred.¹

The consequence goes further than a standard disqualification. All wage credits from the job where the conduct happened are canceled, so those wages cannot be used to establish a new benefit account later.¹ If that job was your main source of income, you’ll need to build fresh work history elsewhere before you can qualify again.

How DEED Decides

When you file a claim after being fired for any reason other than lack of work, DEED opens an investigation. The agency contacts your former employer and asks the same questions it asked you about how the job ended. It reviews both accounts and mails a written determination to you and to the employer.²

This is where detail matters. Give DEED the full context: what happened, when, whether there were warnings, whether the incident was isolated, and any circumstances that fit one of the statutory exceptions. If DEED doesn’t have enough facts to see your side, the determination can go against you by default.

If You’re Denied, You Have 45 Days to Appeal

A denial isn’t the end of the road. You have 45 calendar days from the date on the determination to file an appeal.³ Miss it and the appeal is dismissed as untimely. The case then goes to an Unemployment Law Judge who holds a hearing, takes testimony from both sides, and issues a written decision.⁴

Keep filing your weekly payment requests while the appeal is pending. If the judge reverses the denial, back benefits are paid only for weeks you actually requested. Weeks you skipped are gone.

How Severance Affects the Start of Benefits

Severance doesn’t disqualify you, but it delays payment. If your employer pays severance, wages in lieu of notice, or retention pay, you’re ineligible for the number of weeks that payment represents at your regular pay rate. Four weeks of severance at your normal salary means a four-week delay before benefits begin.⁵

File your claim as soon as you’re separated even if severance is coming, because the delay runs concurrently with the severance window once the claim is on file. Vacation or PTO payouts are treated differently: when the separation is permanent, which a firing typically is, vacation pay is not deducted from your weekly benefit.⁵

What to Do Now

File the claim, tell DEED the full story of why you were let go, and if the reason fits one of the statutory exceptions or was a one-time incident, say so plainly. Watch your mail for the determination. If it goes against you, calendar the 45-day appeal deadline the day you receive it, and keep requesting weekly payments in the meantime.

1
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes Section 268.095 – Ineligibility Because of Quit or Discharge
2
Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Information Handbook: Applying for Benefits
3
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Statutes Section 268.105 – Decisions and Orders
4
Unemployment Insurance Minnesota. Appeal Hearing
5
Unemployment Insurance Minnesota. Other Income