Unemployment Insurance

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 [...]

An agreement to extend EUC has been worked out by a group of 5 Republican Senators and the Democrat majority in the Senate to provide the 60 votes needed for consideration when the Senate returns from the congressional break.  The agreement was announced late today through a bi-partisan release below. See the legislative draft language attached [...]