Concerning unemployment benefits and including effective date provisions

This bill relates to unemployment benefits. The bill strikes language providing that an eligible individual’s maximum weekly benefit amount varies with the number of the individual’s dependents. The bill instead provides that an individual with dependents will have a weekly benefit amount of 1/22 the individual’s highest gross quarterly salary during the individual’s base period, subject to a maximum of percent of the statewide average weekly wage. The bill provides that the maximum weekly benefit amount for unemployment benefits shall be rounded to the upper multiple of $1, rather than the lower multiple as provided under current law. The bill requires a person applying for unemployment benefits to complete a specified number of work searches, as defined in the bill, based on the number of jobs listed as available as published by the department of workforce development (IWD) on the first day of the previous month, for each week the person is applying for benefits in order to be eligible for benefits. A work search shall not satisfy an individual’s eligibility requirements if the individual previously applied to the same position within the most recent four weeks. Specified types of work searches can only be counted once per week toward the total weekly requirements. The bill requires that at least half of the work searches an individual uses to meet eligibility requirements must be from a list of known available jobs within a 50-mile radius of the individual’s residence in fields related to employment the applicant held within the most recent years, in fields which the applicant has identified an interest, or that require skills that the individual claimed to have when applying for benefits. The bill requires IWD to provide the individual a list of these jobs on a weekly basis. The bill strikes language providing that when IWD waives or alters the work search requirements for a claim for benefits if an individual has a reasonable expectation that the individual will be returning to employment and is attached to a regular job or industry on a short-term temporary layoff, the employer may request an extension of the waiver or alteration for up to two weeks if work is not available at the conclusion of the layoff period due to short-term circumstances beyond the employer’s control. The bill requires IWD to submit a report to the general assembly no later than July 1, 2023, detailing the status of IWD’s modernization project. The bill provides that IWD shall implement provisions of the bill relating to dependents and work searches no later than the completion of IWD’s modernization project. The bill takes effect January 1, 2024, except the provision providing for a report by IWD, which takes effect upon enactment.