I feel like this is something that should be posted here. Many people are very ignorant when it comes to unemployment eligibility, and believe many things that are false. There's definitely hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people that have been unjustly denied unemployment, mostly because they don't appeal.
Fist off, and the biggest of them all for all you impatient people, you need to understand that it costs employers $0 to deny your unemployment request, and hope you don't appeal. Many employers will deny an employees request just because they know many won't appeal, and it saves them on the rate they have to pay into unemployment. Unemployment is insurance, and it's done very similar to car insurance and accidents. When you get into an accident, your rates go up, when more of your employees file for and receive unemployment, their unemployment rate goes up. Obviously it's a shitty, and unethical thing to do, but like they care about ethics. They have all the incentives in the world, and no deterrent, not to just deny everyone, then just not show up the to appeals and now you're just paying the people that were smart enough to appeal, instead of paying everyone that applied. Even if you think you're ineligible, appeal, because most people, including people just as smart and or smarter than you, just aren't knowledgeable enough to know whether you really are ineligible or not, what your employer claims in the denial is irrelevant. Don't let their reasoning on it fool you into thinking that means you're definitely ineligible, that sometimes may be the case, but it by no means is always the case.
Unemployment is insurance, it is not a low income personal taxpayer funded program. It's funded by companies paying a rate that's decided by how many of their employees end up receiving unemployment, and will go up if more do. It's an insurance for us, paid for by them, in the case that employment is terminated due to no wrongdoing of our own. This means that your money in the bank, stocks, capital gains, assets, and otherwise are completely irrelevant to your eligibility of unemployment. Theoretically, you could get unemployment if you're a millionaire as long as your employment was terminated from no wrongdoing of your own, and have no income related to your labor coming in. Income from labor meaning W-2, I-9, unemployment somewhere else, workmans comp, retirement or pensions only if you're actively being paid out on them, etc, it has to be income directly connected to your labor for unemployment to give a rats ass about it.
Unemployment doesn't give a flying F about a company policy. Unemployment has their standards of what constitutes as your own wrongdoing, and violating a company policy in and of itself is not something that will cause ineligibility for unemployment. Yes, there could be a company policy that lines up with the reasons unemployment will determine ineligibility, but just because you broke a company policy or rule in no way, shape, or form, dictates whether you are or aren't eligible for unemployment.
I have personally won two different cases of my unemployment being denied without any help. The first was a DOT issue, and my employer firing me because I refused to take a shift that would have put me over my daily driving limit per the DOT. I made sure to keep a copy of my DOT log from that day, and all the texts to prove they were expecting me to ignore DOT regulations and fudge my DOT log. She was so confident too going in there, tried to lie and act like none of what I was saying ever happened and I was fired for a completely different reason. They didn't believe her, didn't buy it, I got paid within 2-3 weeks.
The second time, I actually threatened a co-worker to kick the shit out of him outside after work and they still ruled in my favor. Here's why though, I had documented and saved every piece of evidence that I could of not only my co-worker being a POS, saying the most fucked up, unnecessary, racist, sexist, homophobic, you name the offensive topic, and he was saying shit about it at some point. Because I had been to management and HR 7 times over his behavior before I lost it that day, and I wasn't the only one complaining, unemployment decided that even though I was wrong for what I did in the day in question, they employer willfully supported and helped create a hostile work environment that should have been dealt with long before it turned into that. I really didn't think I had any chance to win that one either, I was only doing it off principle because I tried Everything I could to not snap on the guy, did the right thing bringing it to management, they did nothing, then I'm the bad guy when I can't take it anymore. To my pleasant surprise, once again unemployment was fair and I was paid in 2-3 weeks. Luckily I've been a union member ever since and have had no issue's like that since.
TLDR: I can't speak for other countries, and I can't speak for every state on the appeal being fair. At least in Massachusetts, they are very fair and you should always appeal. Employers have no remorse, and no deterrent, to not deny everyone even when they're eligible just because they know at least some, if not a lot, of people won't appeal and it will save them on the rate they have to pay into unemployment. Unless you're 110% sure that your states appeals are not fair for some reason, you should ALWAYS APPEAL. Assets, money in the bank, and capital gains are irrelevant to unemployment eligibility. Company policies and rules are irrelevant to unemployment eligibility. Unemployment has their own rules, and standards of what is considered termination due to no wrongdoing of your own. Yes a policy can align with unemployments standards, but just because it's a company policy or rule does not mean it automatically fits unemployments standards.
There are some differences from state to state, so I specifically kept the majority of this other than my experience with appeals to the issue's I see people get wrong that are universal to the US. I know there's other things people get wrong too on some state level things, but I felt keeping this to the issue's that are as far as I know universal would do more justice for the post. Don't let your ex-employer gaslight you on an unemployment claim denial.