Employee who worked in one state but lived in another seeks unemployment

It can be confusing when an employee lives in one state but works in another and then seeks unemployment benefits after termination. In which state should she file? A recent case before the Arkansas Court of Appeals provides some guidance.

Facts

Monique Miller was an Arkansas resident working in Tennessee when she was laid off from Memphis Mill Services in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was instructed by her employer to file for unemployment insurance benefits in Tennessee because that was the state where she was employed.

After filing in Tennessee, however, Miller was told by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development to file for unemployment benefits in her state of residency—i.e., Arkansas. She began filing claims in Arkansas from April 11 through August 1, 2020, but was informed she couldn’t file for benefits in Arkansas until her claim in Tennessee was closed, which took approximately five months.

Once her Tennessee claim was closed, Miller filed for unemployment in Arkansas, requesting to backdate her claim from April 11 through August 1, 2020, when she originally filed in Arkansas. In April 2021, the Arkansas Division of Workforce Services issued her a "Notice of Agency Determination" finding she hadn’t shown good cause for backdating her claims. She then filed a timely appeal of that decision to the appeal tribunal, which conducted a hearing in June 2021 affirming the division's determination.