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The Wisconsin Legislature is apparently just days away from triggering extended federal compensation for workers who have lost, or will lose, their jobs in this recession. The move could result in greater individual payments to the unemployed under a federal, rather than state, supplemental program. But the driving factor will be to ease the cost to Wisconsin, which is rapidly using up its unemployment compensation fund.
The Joint Committee on Finance unanimously voted Tuesday morning to speed a switch from state supplemental unemployment benefits to federal payments. Three Racine area legislators, Sen. John Lehman, D-Racine; Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine, and Rep. Robin Vos, R-Caledonia, serve on the 16-member committee.
Mason said in a news release that both legislative houses will act on the matter this week.
State law pays up to 26 weeks, or about six months, of regular unemployment compensation. Payments can range from $54 to $363 weekly, depending on a person’s past earnings. The state also allows up to eight weeks of extended benefits. “Those would kick in during periods of high unemployment such as we’re in now,” said state Department of Workforce Development spokesman Dick Jones.
Unemployed state residents are now claiming $10 million weekly in federal extended benefits, according to the state Unemployment Insurance Division Advisory Council. Because of the way state law is written, those charges would largely shift to the Wisconsin Reserve Fund if the Legislature did not act. By turning off that trigger, the Legislature can save the state’s unemployment compensation trust fund more than $44 million, the advisory council stated Friday in a letter to legislators. That unemployment compensation fund started the day Tuesday at $88.4 million, Jones said. If it runs dry, the fund would have to borrow from, and pay back, the federal government. However, by using federal instead of state extended benefits beyond the first 26 weeks, Wisconsin can avoid a bigger drain on its own fund. That fund, the sole source of which is a tax on employers, would have run out of money next month, Jones said.
Last year, Congress twice approved extensions of jobless benefits, Jones said. The first allowed for extensions of benefits up to 13 weeks beyond what a state would pay. The second federal action created a second possible extension of either seven or 13 weeks, depending on each state’s jobless rate. Wisconsin is in the seven-week tier, which would give a total 20-week federal extension to this state’s unemployed. Congress is expected to extend federal jobless benefits further this year.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
By Andrew Beckett (WRN.com)
Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine)A proposal at the Capitol would restore the civil rights of state and UW employees. U.S. Supreme Court decisions over the last decade have resulted in nearly 60,000 state employees being denied key civil rights protections, according to state Representative Cory Mason (D-Racine). He says those decisions have impacted the rights of workers to sue the state under the Family Medical Leave Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Age Discrimination Employment Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Mason is introducing legislation requiring the state to waive its immunity to those laws. As a major employer, he says the state should not tolerate people being denied the right to protect themselves from discrimination or wrongful termination from a job. The exemption from federal law does not apply to local government employees, only those directly employed by the state. Mason says it's unfair to prevent those workers from suing the state, if they feel federal laws have been violated. A similar proposal failed to pass during the last legislative session.
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