Update on 2017 unemployment legislation

The first and probably only hearing on the Advisory Council agreed-on bill, SB399, is slated for 12:30 today, 4 October 2017, at the Committee on Labor and Regulatory Reform in 201 Southeast of the Capitol.

This bill contains the Department’s proposals that the Advisory Council has approved (previously described in this post). Prior drafts of the bill are available here and here.

NOTE: The Advisory Council rejected Department proposals D17-03 (assessing employers for failing to provide employee records) and D17-06 (changing the burden of proof in certain unemployment cases) at the 9 August 2017 council meeting.

During discussions, management members of the Advisory Council made the following proposals:

• Repeal the quit exception in Wis. Stat. § 108.04(7)(e). Under this provision, a claimant who quits a job within 30 days of being hired may retain their eligibility for unemployment benefits if the job that the claimant quit was not “suitable work” to begin with under Wis. Stat. § 108.04(8) OR the claimant could have refused to accept the under the federally-required labor standards provisions of Wis. Stat. § 108.04(9).
• Treat state and federal holidays as working days for partial benefits if the employer is closed on those holidays. This provision is similar to what the Governor previously vetoed when added to the 2013 budget bill and which the council declined. See this post and this post.
• Reduce the maximum number of benefit weeks based on the unemployment rate to 22 weeks when the unemployment rate is below 7% and 18 weeks when the unemployment rate is below 5%. The Council previously rejected this proposal from legislators. See this post and this post.
• Amend definitions of misconduct and substantial fault in some way.

Labor representatives on the council made the following proposals:

• Increase maximum weekly benefit rate (WBR) by $10 in 2018 and by another $10 in 2019.
• Amend the trigger for tax schedule D to $1.8 billion. The current threshold for schedule D (the schedule with the lowest unemployment taxes) is $1.2 billion in the trust fund as of June 30th of the proceeding tax year.
• Increase the taxable wage base in 2019 to $16,500 and then index that wage base in subsequent years.

The only available information about these proposals is available from this Department memorandum and a limited fiscal analysis. The Management proposals are not detailed in either document, and the description of the labor proposals is very general.

NOTE: An explanation for why management wanted changes to substantial fault and misconduct is provided, however:

Due to recent decisions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals regarding discharge for misconduct and substantial fault, the Management members of the Council propose to amend the definitions of “misconduct” and “substantial fault” in order to clarify legislative intent.

At the 9 August 2017 council meeting, the Advisory Council decided that none of these proposals would be taken up.

Finally, the fiscal estimate from the Department for SB399 has this information:

Assumptions Used in Arriving at Fiscal Estimate The bill makes various changes in the unemployment insurance (Ul) law, which is administered by the Department of Workforce Development (DWD). Compliance to the bill’s components will require one time IT work of 3,930 hours and one time administration work of 1,180 hours costing a total of $444,500. The funding will come from the UI Federal Administration grant. It is expected that the proposed changes will increase collections and save the UI Trust Fund $1,250,000 annually.

Long-Range Fiscal Implications It is expected that the proposed changes will increase collections and save the UI Trust Fund $1,250,000 annually.

These savings are largely due to the changes set forth in proposal D17-07 regarding new mechanisms for intercepting tax refunds, lottery payments, state vendor payments, and unclaimed property of taxpayers. See D17-07 at 19 (but note that the original estimates in D17-07 called for much more debt collection from employers to the tune of ~$3 million in light of all the changes being enacted in that proposal).

DWD/Advisory Council bill going forward

The official Advisory Council/DWD bill has just been introduced, AB819. So, here is a rundown of what has been happening with unemployment law over the last several months, organized by proposal.

Department Proposals

• A second SSDI prohibition, D15-01, to replace the current prohibition was approved in April 2015 and back-dated in May 2015. But, after the Department started winning the court cases challenging the old SSDI prohibition (see this post for the details), this proposal disappeared from the Department’s legislative draft at the council’s September 2015 meeting. But, after the Labor and Industry Review Commission ruled in November 2015 that departmental error had occurred when appeal tribunals (but not the Commission) had originally ruled in favor of claimants regarding dual receipt of SSDI and UI benefits (and so no repayment of UI benefits previously received was proper), this proposal re-emerged at the November 2015 council meeting in the Department’s legislative drafts and is now part of AB819. Why? This second SSDI prohibition is back-dated to January 2014, the effective date of the original SSDI prohibition.
• D15-02 is a house-keeping change that allows the Department to issue determinations against out-of-state employers in combined wage claims for being at fault for an erroneous benefit payment to a claimant. This proposal is part of AB416 and has been enacted in 2015 Wisconsin Act 86.
• D15-03 applies the Treasury offset program to employers, as described previously in this post. This proposal is part of AB416 and has been enacted in 2015 Wisconsin Act 86. Because of this quick enactment, employers will be subject to treasury offsets for their 2015 tax returns for any unemployment taxes for which they have been found individually liable.
• D15-04 sets up essentially a backup insurance program for reimbursable employers who get their unemployment accounts swindled by identity fraud (and so have little to no hope of ever recovering the stolen benefits). The final recommendation from the council was for reimbursable employers to be taxed initially in order to create a fund of $1 million for covering themselves against identity fraud, essentially the second option of the three presented. This proposal is part of AB819.
• D15-05 corrects a hole in the statutes that accidentally left LLPs out of the definition of employer (see also this DWD memo on this issue). This proposal is part of AB819.
• The Advisory Council approved the Department’s appeals modernization proposal, D15-06, at the 7 January 2016 meeting. LRB draft language was prepped soon thereafter. Perhaps the most significant change in this proposal — notice by Internet in place of postal mail — has NOT received any discussion of comment from council members, however. This proposal is now part of AB819.
• A renewed work-share program, D15-07, is part of AB416 and has been enacted as 2015 Wisconsin Act 86.
• Proposed changes to the definition of claimant concealment in D15-08 (described in this previous post and described in a Department memo (discussed in this post) are part of AB819. Additional criminal penalties for concealment in AB533 continue to advance in the legislature. To see what all the fuss is about, take a look at this January 21st Assembly Committee on Public Benefit Reform hearing regarding AB533 and other UI bills or read this LIRC memo on the proposed concealment changes.
• Technical changes in D15-09 and included in AB819 will allow the Department to distinguish able and available determinations from separation determinations.
• D15-10 eliminates the publication of the claimant benefit tables within the statutes and is included in AB819.
• Major changes to the process for getting unemployment decisions reviewed in circuit court, set forth in D15-11, are part of AB819. These changes were previously described here and here.
• D15-12 allows the same protocols for unemployment taxes in regards to fiscal agents in adult care to apply to fiscal agents in child care situations. This proposal is part of AB819.
• D15-13 ends the sunset date in 2034 for the program integrity fund (i.e., the fund for receiving some of the monies from concealment enforcement) since the Department now expects concealment monies to continue in perpetuity. See the next two proposals for why.
• The Department’s proposals for a program integrity slush fund, D15-14 and D15-15, are part of AB819.

Labor and Management Proposals
At the Advisory Council’s 19 January 2016 meeting, the council took action on various management and labor proposals and the agreed-to changes have been incorporated in AB819.

The management proposals that the council agreed to include significant changes to what will be considered suitable work:

• During the first six weeks of a job search, suitable work that a claimant MUST accept will be those jobs that (1) do not have a lower grade of skill than one or more of his or her most recent jobs and (2) have had an hourly wage that is 75 percent or more of what the claimant previously earned in his or her most recent, highest paying job.
• After the first six weeks, suitable work means any work the claimant is capable of performing regardless of prior experience, skills, or training, as long as the wages for that job are above the lowest quartile wage-level in the claimant’s relevant labor market.

Once a job offer is considered suitable work for a claimant, then the claimant only has good cause for declining the job offer if the claimant’s personal safety is at risk, the claimant’s sincerely held religious beliefs conflict with the work, the work entails an unreasonable commuting distance, or some other compelling reason makes accepting the offer unreasonable. These changes to what will be considered suitable work will also apply to those who tentatively accept a job and then quit within the first thirty days.

In addition, this accepted management proposal will either eliminate unemployment eligibility entirely for anyone receiving temporary or partial workers’ compensation benefits or mandate offsets against UI benefits for those receiving these kind of workers’ compensation benefits (the specific type of workers’ compensation benefit being received leads to the different kinds of treatment). In other words, the SSDI prohibition is being expanded to workers’ compensation benefits. Also, anyone making a mistake in how they report their specific workers’ compensation benefits will, under the new on-line filing system, likely face a concealment charge for his or her mistake in reporting the kind of workers’ compensation benefits he or she is receiving.

These management-sponsored changes will take effect four weeks after enactment.

The labor proposals that the council agreed to include:

• repealing the mis-classification prohibitions in workers’ compensation and fair employment law,
• creating an administrative penalty for mis-classification for unemployment purposes of $500 per employee (capped at $7,500) when construction employers (and only construction employers) knowingly and intentionally provide false information to the Department (NOTE: compare this definition with the proposed changes to claimant concealment) for the purpose of misclassifying or attempting to mis-classify an employee,
• fining employers in painting and sheetrock work $1,000 per incident (capped at $10,000 per calendar year) when coercing employees into accepting non-employee status for unemployment purposes, and
• fining construction employers $1,000 per employee (with a maximum of $25,000) for subsequent violations as well as possible referral for criminal prosecution.

These mis-classification changes will take effect six months after passage.

Budget Bill Fixes
The LIRC funding fix bill, discussed here, is also right now being considered by the legislature.

The call in the budget bill for the Department to create suitable work rules for claimants has been eliminated by the management-sponsored changes to suitable work described above.

Update (12 June 2021): Fixed broken DWD links to labor proposals and management proposals that the Advisory Council agreed to.

New Internet Claims Filing Process for 2016

The Department of Workforce Development is revamping its Internet Claims Filing process with a much more complicated and detailed series of questions and screens. At the December 17th Advisory Council meeting, the Department was scheduled to present to the council what these changes would entail. Because of other issues, however, the council never got to see this presentation. Luckily, the Department sent me a copy.

Those filing their weekly claim certifications will now be told about fraud warnings at the start and end of their claim filing. See pp.2 and 17. And, the 14 questions now being asked are at least 20+ questions. Furthermore, rather than simplifying the information being asked about, the new questions continue to be legalistic and leave key information out.

NOTE: For comparison, here are the questions Massachusetts asks claimants (in Massachusetts, the phone questions are the same as when filing by Internet).

NOTE: Also compare the information available in the Massachusetts Guide to Benefits for Claimants with Wisconsin’s Handbook for Claimants. Notice the kind of information available in Massachusetts and the tone of how that information is presented as compared to Wisconsin.

For example, in Wisconsin there will now be a question about school attendance. See p.3. Usually, when you attend school during your regular work shift you are ineligible for unemployment benefits. But, if you work during the evenings while attend classes during the day, you should still be eligible for unemployment benefits when laid off from your evening job. In this case, the schooling does not interfere with your availability on your typical work shift. The new Internet filing form, however, only asks about attending classes during the day and does not include or ask for any information about regular work shifts.

Able and available status are now two separate questions as well. See pp.4 and 5. Missing work because of illness usually leads to a reduction in weekly benefits because work was missed. The question on p.4, however, only asks about your regular employer. Because many claimants who have temporary, part-time work do not think of those employers as their “regular” employers, they will not think a question about missing work with a temporary employer because of sickness is included in this question. This question should be asking about any current or future employer and make no reference to a “regular” employer.

Problems with other questions continue. Claimants are supposed to report all wages earned in the week for which they are filing, regardless of when they are actually paid those wages. So, the Department goes into detail about how to report those wages and hours (and minutes) of work for employers (see pp.6-8) as well as how commission work and sales are to be reported (see p.9). But, then the Department asks about sick pay, bonus pay, holiday pay, and other kinds of pay (see pp.10-12) as already received for the week — “did you receive?” — or to be received — “will you receive?” As a result, these questions imply that regular wages that are to be paid in the future do not need to reported since there is no question about reporting wages that “will be received?” Instead of two questions for vacation pay et al., only one should be asked: “Are you to receive?” And, instead of all of these separate kinds of wage income that now has to be reported separately, the Department should simply ask claimants to report “Any and all kinds of income connected to the work with EMPLOYER you are to receive for the week at issue.” By breaking these kinds of income into separate categories, the Department is requiring claimants to have an accountant’s understanding of their income in order to correctly fill out their weekly claim certifications rather than just asking for the total, gross amount of all income regardless of kind.

NOTE: The Department will even have a screen for miscellaneous income, such as baby-sitting, that has to be reported. See p.13.

Specific work search information for each job action will also now have to be provided. See p.15.

Given all the information that has to be provided in the proper category now, opportunities for mistakes will abound. And, any mistake will be an opportunity for charging claimants with fraud. In short, this new Internet filing process will NOT make it easier for claimants to file their weekly claims. But, this new process will make it easier for the Department to charge claimants with concealment.

Unemployment public hearing tomorrow

The unemployment advisory council and the Department of Workforce Development are holding a public hearing tomorrow, 13 November 2014, to take comments on unemployment law. The hearing will be in the afternoon and early evening from 2:30 to 4:30 and 5:30 to 7 PM.

In Madison, the location for the hearing will be:

UW-Extension
The Pyle Center
Room 227
702 Langdon Street
Madison, WI

Check the DWD website for other locations.  If you want to say something about how the state is handling unemployment law, here is your opportunity.  See you there.

Assistance for the long-term unemployed

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) has led advocacy efforts to end hiring practices that discriminate against unemployed job-seekers since issuing its groundbreaking 2011 report, Hiring Discrimination Against the Unemployed.

An October 15th announcement by the administration includes two new handbooks — one for employers (“Guide to Recruiting and Hiring the Long-Term Unemployed”) and one for job-seekers (“New Guide, New Destinations”) — that offer guidance on specific programs and best practices to eliminate unemployment discrimination and increase the hiring of the long-term unemployed.

As part of this new program, the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a new guidance to federal agencies’ hiring managers to help ensure that unemployed applicants and those who have experienced financial difficulties through no fault of their own are not unfairly denied federal employment opportunities.

For example, the guidance states that “job announcements generally should not include a requirement that applicants be currently or recently employed, which discourages unemployed workers.”  And it directs the agencies to include the following language in their outreach material:  “It is the policy of the Government not to deny employment simply because an individual has been unemployed or has had financial difficulties that have arisen through no fault of the individual.”  In addition, OPM issued a “myth buster” geared to the general public and workers interested in applying for federal employment to help clarify federal hiring policies designed to prevent discrimination against the unemployed.

NELP has been working in the issue of long-term unemployment for some time:

A January 2014 policy brief from NELP — Tackling the Long-Term Unemployment Crisis: What the President, Congress and Business Leaders Should Do — lays out a comprehensive agenda for reducing long-term unemployment, and includes several proposals closely mirrored in the administration’s initiative.

Despite receding from the headlines, the crisis of long-term unemployment — the defining feature and legacy of the Great Recession — persists for many Americans.  At nearly three million, there are still more long-term unemployed than at the peak of all prior post-war recessions.  That comparison also holds true for the percentage of the unemployed out of work for 27 weeks or longer (31.9 percent in Sept. 2014) and for the average duration of joblessness (31.5 weeks).

This year has been especially difficult for the long-term unemployed, as they have been cut off from federal extensions of jobless aid as a result of Congress’s failure to renew the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program at the end of 2013.

NELP called for the administration’s initiatives to be scaled up nationally, along with additional programs and funding to provide high-quality, personalized reemployment services as well as subsidized jobs for those long-term unemployed workers who need them.  It also called for measures to help prevent long-term unemployment, including rapid-response-type job-matching and placement services early in the job search, and legislation to prohibit employment discrimination based on an individual’s unemployed status.

2014 unemployment changes: a review of how we got here

2013 Wisconsin Act 20 (pp. 452-60 and 598-603 of the budget act) and 2013 Wisconsin Act 36 (the unemployment advisory council act) produced significant changes to unemployment law (see here for specific changes by the budget bill).

The Department of Workforce Development (DWD or Department) has provided a general description and a table of these changes. For the most part, it has been up to the Labor and Industry Commission (LIRC or Commission) to decide what all of these changes to unemployment law will mean. And, starting in 2014, the Commission has begun to issue those decisions.

Some of these decisions have already been mentioned here on this blog and additional discussions should appear soon.

In the meantime, some might find it useful to review how all of these changes to unemployment law came to be. You can find all of the original DWD proposals here (specifically, the files starting with ‘D12’) along with supporting documentation and additional developments (such as the legislator’s April 1st letter to DWD. My original memo discussing these changes offers a description of what these proposals originally intended.

SSDI and unemployment

LIRC recently issues a lengthly and well-reasoned decision regarding what recent changes to unemployment law in regards to receipt of SSDI benefits means. Here is what I wrote to a clinic client about that decision:

You came to the clinic in April and May of this year with numerous questions about the impact of new unemployment law provisions on people receiving social security disability benefits. When last we spoke, you were planning on appealing on your own an administrative law judge decision that denied you all unemployment benefits because you were receiving social security disability income.

The Labor and Industry Review Commission (LIRC or Commission) has recently issued the enclosed decision, Kluczynski, UI Hearing No. 1400214AP (30 May 2014), that answers many of those questions. The Commission held in Kluczynski that receipt of social security disability benefits only affects unemployment benefits on the week when both unemployment and disability benefits are received. In other weeks where unemployment benefits can be received and for which no disability benefits are paid, claimants are still eligible for their unemployment benefits.

The Commission also goes into great detail in Kluczynski about the contention of the Department of Workforce Development (DWD or Department) that people claiming both disability and unemployment benefits are double-dipping. As the Commission concludes, that position is NOT supported by either social security disability law or unemployment law and wrongly presumes that individuals eligible for each are mutually exclusive to the other. It is an extremely well-argued decision, and I suspect that this decision will withstand judicial scrutiny if the Department should appeal.

Unfortunately, LIRC’s unemployment decision database is temporarily down. I’ll link to Kluczynski when the cite is fully operational again.

UPDATE: Here is the link to Kluczynski.

Not surprisingly, DWD has appealed all of the SSDI decisions LIRC has recently issued on this matter, including Kluczynski. What is strange is that all these appeals appear to be in Kenosha County, a county where most or all of the claimants at issue in these cases do NOT reside.

Worker’s Guide for Unemployment Law Updated

The Worker’s Guide to Unemployment Insurance, that the Unemployment Compensation Appeals Clinic prepares, has just been updated and includes most of the changes in unemployment law that affect claimants. Get a copy ASAP.

Registration with Job Center of Wisconsin mandatory on Oct. 13th

Wisconsin DWD is beginning to institute a host of job search and registration requirements as part of the new budget law, Act 20, and the new unemployment law, Act 36.

The first of these requirements is that unemployment claimants who file initial claims on or after October 13, 2013, and who do not have their job search waived must also create and have active accounts on the Job Center of Wisconsin website.

DWD has created a FAQ about this registration requirement. You can also download a PDF of the FAQ as well.

Lack of computer access does not appear to excuse this requirement. And, this requirement remains regardless of other job search sites you might be using.

So, anyone who begins an unemployment claim or who must start searching for work on or after October 13th will need to register with the state’s official job search web site.  Failing to register will mean no unemployment benefits will be paid until the registration is complete.

Short descriptions of the new UI changes in Wisconsin

Here is a table listing all of the UI changes at issue by bill and the effective date of the proposed change. In addition, here is a two-page description of the relevant changes in unemployment law.

Because the quit exceptions will matter for all determinations after January 5, 2014, and because many of those quit exceptions cover quits with secondary employers, I believe claimants should now presume these changes have already taken effect before quitting a job in the next few months.

For example, suppose a claimant quits a part-time job right now, loses his or her full-time job in February 2014, and subsequently files a claim for unemployment benefits. Because exception (7)(k), quit a part-time job, will no longer exist in February 2014, he or she will be disqualified from benefits unless he or she can show that the quit from the part-time job was for a good cause.

In other words, people who think that current law still applies are wrong. Instead, they need to act right now as if the proposed law is in effect. Only if they know they will not file an unemployment claim in
the next year and a quarter can they safely quit a second job today and not worry about the impact of that quit on unemployment benefits from their primary job.