On May 19th, Gov. Nathan Deal and State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler announced that the almost $1 billion federal loan used to help pay state unemployment insurance (UI) benefits since 2009 had been repaid. The final payment of $62,490,887.99 was sent to the U.S. Department of Labor on May 14 and the GDOL has received confirmation [...]
The EXPIRE Act is expected to pass the Senate next week with an expansion of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC)included. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden indicated in a statement on the floor of the Senate that “the WOTC can help small businesses hire an even greater number of struggling Americans. First, it’ll do more [...]
Federal law requires that states pay interest on outstanding loan balances under Title XII of the Social Security Act. Payment of interest is a requirement of employers in each state in order to receive full offset credit against the FUTA tax (26 USC 3304(a) (17)) and must be paid from funds other than funds in the [...]
The US Department of Labor released its UI Solvency Report on May 13th, showing the relative solvency of each state UI trust fund in comparison to other states based on US DOL suggested standards. See the link to the report at http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/docs/trustFundSolvReport.pdf Our conclusions based on the data included in the study are alarming with respect [...]
On April 17, 2014, the US DOL Employment and Training Administration distributed a Training and Employment Guidance Letter to state workforce agencies advising the agencies that although US DOL does not know whether Congress will act, based on previous retroactive legislation states may expect the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) to be retroactively authorized. DOL interprets [...]
By voice vote on April 3rd the Senate Finance Committee approved an amended version of the Expiring Provisions Improvement Reform and Efficiency (EXPIRE) Act of 2014. See http://www.finance.senate.gov/legislation/details/?id=67094f10-5056-a032-52ff-257830e0a938 One amendment included in the bill by Chairman Wyden would expand WOTC to provide a credit to employers hiring the long term unemployed. A description of the proposal [...]
As the Senate late Monday passed an EUC extension bill and sent it to the House for consideration, the House Ways and Means Committee provided a review of what has happened since EUC ended in December. The committee review makes the point that without EUC the workforce participation rate increased, the total unemployment rate decreased and [...]
The EUC temporary extension bill that has been debated for months was finally brought to a vote on the floor of the US Senate as an amendment to HR 3979 on April 7th and passed on a vote of 59 to 38 with three abstentions. It was significant that the vote on the bill only received [...]
List of states at risk with estimated potential BCR Add on increases estimated by US DOL The FUTA tax, which is already automatically increasing by approximately $21 per year each year in states that fail to repay federal loans, is projected to jump even higher for 2014. The size of the increase is determined by a [...]
In a letter to US Senate Leadership today the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) raised significant administrative issues with the currently proposed EUC extension bill agreed to by of 10 U.S. Senators led by Jack Reed (D-RI) and Dean Heller (R-NV) to reauthorize the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program for five months. The bill, [...]