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When you’ve lost your job
For anyone in the United States who has lost a job, is about to, or is helping someone who has. Filing for unemployment. Keeping health coverage, and the 60-day clock on it. Your last paycheck and severance. Layoff notice. What to do if it wasn’t fair. Free help finding work. Food and bills in the meantime. And the words to say when you call. One thing at a time.
A word with a dotted line under it, like this, opens its official definition, quoted from a U.S. government glossary.
Right now
- Can’t see a way through tonight? Call or text 988, at any hour. The 988 Lifeline says it is there for emotional distress, or if you just need someone to talk to. In danger: 911.
- File for unemployment as soon as you can. The Department of Labor says to contact your state’s program as soon as possible after becoming unemployed, and that the first payment generally takes two to three weeks.
- Losing health insurance? HealthCare.gov says you can enroll in a Marketplace plan within 60 days of losing job-based coverage: 1-800-318-2596.
- Questions about a job loss or layoff? The Department of Labor’s toll-free line: 1-877-872-5627.
More help
- Bills you can’t pay? When the money runs out.
- Need food? When you need food.
- Rent, or nowhere to stay? When you need a place to stay.
- Need a doctor and can’t pay? When you need a doctor and can’t pay.
- Need a lawyer and can’t pay? When you need a lawyer and can’t pay.
- Looking for work with a record? Fair chance job kit.
- Health keeps you from working? Applying for disability benefits.
- A message or job offer that seems off? Is this a scam?
- All our free tools and Get help now.
Other guides on this site that go with this page
Free to read. We chose these ourselves; no professional did. Each guide was written with AI and has not been reviewed by a professional. They are general information, not advice.
- Taxes: free help, and what to do if you can’t pay: whether you need to file, the credits many people miss, where a return is done for free, and what to do when you owe.
- When a medical bill is too much: what to check before you pay, the financial help nonprofit hospitals must offer, surprise bills, and debt collectors.
- If someone is forcing you to work or to sell sex: being made to work or to sell sex by force, lies or threats: the signs, a hotline at any hour, and options if you are not a U.S. citizen.
- When something is wrong at work: unpaid wages, unsafe work, harassment or retaliation: which federal office takes which problem, the phone numbers, and how long you have.
- When it’s about child support: a child support order, from either side: where to start, how to ask for a review when your income changes, past-due support, and staying safe.
- When you’re losing health coverage: health coverage that is ending: the 60-day window for a Marketplace plan, COBRA, Medicaid renewals, turning 26, Medicare, and appeals.
- When you need child care: child care: finding it, help paying for it, what a license means, and where to report a problem.
- Student loans: when you can’t pay, default, and what to ask: student loans: federal or private, a lower payment, what a pause costs, the ways out of default, forgiveness, and the signs of a scam.
- Finishing high school as an adult: the GED, the HiSET, free classes, and diploma scams: finishing high school as an adult: which test your state uses, free classes, the GED test and the HiSET exam, accommodations, and the signs of a diploma scam.
- Working while you get disability benefits: the SSDI trial work period, how earnings change SSI, keeping Medicare and Medicaid, reporting your work, and getting benefits back: working while you get SSDI or SSI: the trial work period, how SSI counts earnings, how long Medicare and Medicaid can continue, what to report, an overpayment letter, and how benefits start again if the job does not last.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). The facts come from the U.S. Department of Labor and its CareerOneStop site, USAGov, HealthCare.gov, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and the 988 Lifeline. The phone numbers, hours and statements were read on their own pages on October 1, 2026; what the Department of Labor says about weekly claims, amounts, denials and appeals, and about COBRA at smaller employers, and what HealthCare.gov counts as income, on October 14, 2026. Things change, and every state runs its own unemployment program, so check before you rely on any of them. Where we did not read something, such as the exact amount a state pays, each state’s rules on quitting or being fired, appeal deadlines, state rules on final pay, or severance agreements, the page says so and does not guess. A few lines are our own suggestions, and the page marks them as ours. This page saves nothing: no account, no cookies, nothing you tick is stored or sent, and no analytics (privacy). Scarlet Beast is not a law firm or an employment agency, is not part of any government agency, and takes no money from anyone named here. Found a mistake? Email [email protected].