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I am a federal employee and I was transferred from Maryland to Missouri in February 2016. My wife was a federal employee and she left her job in Maryland to move back to Missouri with me. When she attempted to draw her unemployment benefit (federal), the state of Maryland denied her because they stated that her leaving her federal position because I was transferred did not qualify. In so many words Maryland says that her leaving her fed job so she could move back to Missouri with me was/is not a good enough reason and that her benefits were denied. Now all this said, she could not get a transfer from her position because the agency she worked for did not have job positions here in Missouri, and they did not offer a hardship for this move. While it is obvious that you do not leave your spouse when you make a move like this makes perfect sense to me however all the red tape in the state of Maryland appears to cloud their vision up there. I am tempted to get in touch with the state board here in Missouri to ask for assistance with her problem with Maryland, maybe go as far as going to the Governor and ask questions. When things like this happen, it makes me wonder how many other families the state of Maryland has put through this mess because of their red tape blindness. I cannot believe it, when someone does things legit and gets denied, while others who are shady do it and get by with it is criminal to me. I wonder how many veterans the state of Maryland has done this very same thing to. I am sorry for ranting however, I am not very happy with the state of Maryland right now.
UI's basic tenant is "quit with good cause connected with the work." Quitting her job to follow you has nothing to do with anything her employer had done, and why should they have to eat the cost of her UI claim for a decision that you guys I'm sure made as a couple. Some states have created exceptions for "trailing spouses" either by law, regulation, or case law.
From the table on page 5-6 and footnotes from 5-7, MD has no such exception. Unless you were a military employee that was transferred, you are SOL.
Instead of wasting time getting MO involved in your MD problems, write the MD legislators, and ask them to change the law. However, now that you don't live there anymore, I'm sure they won't much care.
There have been past attempts in Maryland to expand Trailing Spouse benefits to federal employees. It has never gotten anything more than just a token gesture. Maryland is loaded with federal employees and since Congress has never craved out special benefits for trailing spouses, the state isn't going to shoulder the cost for that many potential trailing spouses. Many states that offer Trailing Spouse benefits usually have large populations but small federal employee presence. By example, California (which offers trailing spouse benefits) has a 38,000,000 residents with 150,000 being federal employees. Maryland has 6,000,000 resident with 115,000 being "countable" (does not include any employees working for the NSA, CIA or DIA) federal employees. Maryland would go bankrupt if they offered training spouse benefits to federal employees without federal repayment.
In the future, you will want to research and know if benefits will be paid as part of the decision making instead of assuming it would pay only to find out you get squat. Sorry, wish we had better news.
OP - only half the states in the country offer trailing spouse - and about half of those are available to military families only. Maryland is one of those states - offers trailing spouse to military families only.
This isn't a red-tape glitch. It is a state-mandated benefit glitch. You are tilting at windmills to ask MO for help. Missiouri has nothing whatsoever to do with the loss of the MD job. Any pleas to Maryland will fall on deaf ears, as well. Fwiw, Missouri doesn't offer trailing spouse benefits, either. Most red states are pretty stingy when it comes to unemployment benefits.
You just happened to be moving from the wrong state.
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