How do you claim unemployment in Minnesota?
The Minnesota Unemployment Insurance Program pays a temporary partial wage replacement to workers who become unemployed through no fault of their own, and DEED supervises and administers it. Apply in the same week the work stops, on the weekday the last digit of your Social Security number gives you.
Apply by phone from Greater Minnesota: 1-877-898-9090
Benefits are funded by a tax paid only by employers, and tax deductions from an employee's paycheck are never used for them.
Your first week
- Apply in the same week you become unemployed or your hours are greatly reduced. A week you work 32 or more hours is not a week of unemployment.
- A first application has to go in on the weekday your Social Security number gives you: Monday for a last digit of 0, 1, or 2, Tuesday for 3, 4, or 5, and Wednesday for 6, 7, 8, or 9. Thursday and Friday take any digit.
- Your benefit account is effective the Sunday of the week you file. You can ask at the application to have it start the week before instead, if you were unemployed that week too.
How to file for unemployment has the hours, the phone numbers, and what to have in front of you.
Whether you qualify
You need sufficient earnings in your base period, legal authorization to work in the United States, and unemployment, or substantially reduced hours, through no fault of your own. After that, each week turns on being able and willing to accept work and taking action towards finding a job that matches your skills, experience, training, and ability.
Quitting and a discharge for misconduct can both end a claim, and both carry exceptions that the short lists leave out. Who qualifies works through them.
Help near you
More than 50 CareerForce locations around the state offer job search help in person, over the phone, and online, at no cost to you. Offices and phone numbers lists each one and says which days it opens.
Minnesota unemployment guides
- How to fileWhen to file, the weekday your number gives you, and what to have ready
- Who qualifiesBase-period wages, quitting, misconduct, and the exceptions short lists miss
- How much it paysThe formula, the $948 maximum, the October recompute, and what cuts a week
- How long it lastsWhat sets the number of payable weeks, your benefit year, and running out
- Weekly claims and work searchRequesting a payment each week, work search rules, and reporting earnings
- Denials, appeals, and overpaymentsThe 45-day appeal deadline, the phone hearing, overpayments, and fraud
- TaxesWhether benefits are taxed, what DEED holds back, and finding your 1099-G
- Offices and phone numbersWhich number does what, and every CareerForce location
- DisabilityPaid Leave, SSDI, SSI, and what a disability means for a claim
- JobsThe state job bank, CareerForce locations, and training help
- Questions and answersThe questions no single guide answers whole