Letting An Employer Fire You

As long as a person is actively pursuing other job opportunities and they were not discharged from a former job for the likes of significant incompetence, there is the option to file for unemployment in America after being fired.  Letting an employer fire oneself instead of resigning, which would make oneself the initiator, is a key factor in whether this is legally permitted.  Unemployment provides a minimalist safety net for those who have been fired.  It is not supposed to bring in a full salary, but it is something to lessen the financial vulnerability.  Because unemployment is paid by employers, however, some of them will try to manipulate employees into submitting their resignations.

In hopes that the worker will quit on their own and thus not be legally entitled to unemployment, a malevolent employer might make working conditions more and more cruel or overwhelming, targeting the individual he or she seeks to drive away.  Under the right circumstances, the alternative is that the employer could have to pay unemployment to their employee after firing them from their job, given that the former worker applies for it and that they were not let go for egregious misconduct or negligence.  This leaves the door open for workers to have some semblance of economic support as they search for a new job and means that there is no reason why a worker who is not financially secure should knowingly quit a company on their own when faced with workplace exploitation.

To maximize the morally permissible benefit to oneself, do not quit a job unnecessarily if there are laws in place that allow the collection of unemployment upon being fired; let an irrationalistic employer fire you and then receive at least some monetary provision at the abusive employer's expense.  They wanted to force someone's departure on irrational or unjust grounds, only to find that they cannot merely will other people to act if they are unwilling.  Their continued financial support of the worker they mistreated means they would be doing part of what they should have done before: paying someone without simultaneously micromanaging their lives or doing all that they can get away with making their time at work hell on Earth.

Again, unemployment is not meant to be a full replacement for ideal wages or salaries that is within every worker's reach, no matter how severe their flaws as an employee or how they exited their role.  It is something to ease the transition period between one job and another.  Like with other workplace-related constructs of businesses and governments, egoistic employers can oppress workers in this arena, namely by trying to intimidate or frustrate them into voluntarily leaving their jobs so that unemployment cannot be claimed.  There are even then still ways to navigate this kind of cruelty or pettiness that work out in the employee's favor, if only they have a firm resolve and are willing to endure the stupidity or wrath or an increasingly hostile employer.