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Quit Because Of Coronavirus? You Might Need A Doctor's Note To Get Unemployment.

People who quit their jobs are not usually eligible for unemployment insurance. The $2 trillion law Congress passed last month to help people weather the coronavirus pandemic changed that rule, but people who quit their jobs to dodge the disease may struggle to qualify.

The new law says someone is eligible for benefits if “the individual has to quit his or her job as a direct result of COVID-19,” the disease caused by the virus that has already killed more than 10,000 Americans.

But the guidance the Trump administration released to states on how to implement the new rules suggests that workers are not eligible if they quit to avoid catching or spreading the virus. The guidelines say that a person only “has to quit” if they’re absolutely forced to do it.

Workers are eligible for the benefits if they or a family member catch the coronavirus, if their kid’s school shuts down or if their employer is forced to close, among other extenuating circumstances laid out in the guidance.

“Quitting as precaution is not one of them,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Labor Department told HuffPost in an email.

Senate Republicans complained about the coronavirus legislation’s unemployment provisions before they voted to support the measure, which also included direct payments to households, funding for hospitals and billions in business subsidies. Republicans did not specifically complain about the new eligibility provisions ― which represented the biggest expansion of unemployment insurance since the program’s creation in the 1930s ― but they said a separate provision boosting weekly benefits by $600 for four months would drive people to quit.

“This bill creates an incentive for people to be unemployed for the next four months,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said.

The unemployment argument encapsulates the bigger debate between public health experts who say people need to remain apart to control the pandemic and officials like...

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