Rick McHugh of the National Employment Law Project has two posts describing the Obama Administration’s unemployment proposals.
In the first post, he notes that the Administration wants to mandate a norm of 26 weeks of state UI benefits, which currently exists in Wisconsin after the waiting week, use of an alternative base period for determining eligibility for UI benefits (also currently available in Wisconsin), opening up UI eligibility to those looking for part-time work (currently NOT available in Wisconsin), and requiring states to allow workers to quit jobs for compelling family circumstances without losing unemployment benefits (currently available in Wisconsin but not well-enforced).
The Administration is also offering $5 billion in funds to states for modernization efforts and an option to create a volunteer work option — aka Georgia Works — for claimants.
In the second post, McHugh describes how the administration wants to: (a) institutionalize a four-tiered extended benefits program and the triggers for such benefits; (b) mandate minimum UI taxes, index the taxable wage base for unemployment taxes to inflation, impose a minimum state UI tax rate, and create new triggers for an increase in federal UI taxes when a state’s UI reserves fall below certain thresholds; and (c) make work-share options a permanent feature of the unemployment system.
Wisconsin Unemployment 