Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has an article on the Senate passage of a bill to fix the insolvent unemployment insurance fund.
The Republican-controlled Senate yesterday approved a plan to make the insurance program solvent by 2012 by raising taxes on employers, cutting benefits and changing the system so companies that routinely lay off employees will be forced to opt out of the program or pay nearly the full cost of their benefits.
But House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said his caucus has no plans to accept provisions that would affect workers.
I think they’re going to have to accept provisions that would affect workers to some degree. Maybe Speaker Bauer is just talking big for negotiations so that whatever finally passes does not affect workers as much.
As passed by the Senate, the proposal would provide about $125 million less in benefits to unemployed workers annually. Hardest hit would be those who earned less at their jobs and those unable to find new jobs quickly.
Weekly benefits — which now average about $298 — would begin dropping after the fourth week of payments. But workers who enrolled in state-approved training could avoid having their payments decrease.
The Senate Republican plan would also force companies that frequently lay off workers to pay sharply higher premiums. A company’s maximum premium per employee is now $392 annually. Under the proposed changes, the maximum would jump to $820.
Companies that rarely lay off workers would pay slightly less. The minimum premium would drop from $77 per year per employee to $75.
Seems to me that many of the same arguments based on the bad economy one can use to resist benefit cuts to employees would also work to resist increasing taxes on businesses; (particularly small businesses such as *cough* *cough* mine.)
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