A last-minute bill to cut unemployment benefits has lawmakers confused. They’re rushing it through anyway

As the House Finance Committee began discussing a quickly-drafted unemployment bill on Monday, it quickly became apparent that lawmakers were going to have lots of questions. Within minutes, the committee hit its first roadblock: How much are unemployment benefits?

Questions continued over the course of three and a half hours on Monday, as the committee heard from a staff lawyer, several officials from WorkForce West Virginia, a legislative economist, and the director of a statewide labor organization.

Delegates regularly jumped in, noting that they needed help understanding both the Senate’s last-minute amended unemployment plan , which differs significantly from what was introduced last week and from other unemployment bills proposed in recent years , and the complex system of state unemployment benefits that it would change.

Numbers were calculated and then recalculated. How benefits would change was disputed by both lawmakers and the experts they brought up to testify. And at times, one presenter would contradict what another had said before.

“It’s clear as mud, I’m just going to be honest,” said Del. Daniel Linville, R- Cabell.

Despite the confusion, the finance committee moved ahead with the bill , voting 14-9 to send it to the floor of the House of Delegates.

As the legislative session draws to a close, lawmakers are poised to pass the unemployment bill as early as Friday while some say they don’t understand what it does.

“If a constituent came up and said ‘what did you do on the unemployment benefits’, I’m not sure I can answer,” said Del. Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha.

Questions about employee benefits — and employer contributions

Because Republican Senate leaders introduced the amended bill, SB 841, late in the session and have quickly advanced it, lawmakers have not heard much publicly from employers or people who have experience using unemployment on how the newest version of the bill would affect them.

So far, some business leaders seem supportive. On Thursday, MetroNews reported that Brian Dayton, vice president of policy and advocacy of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, said the bill “would provide stability to the unemployment fund and prevent a series of cascading tax increases on businesses.”

When the bill has been discussed in the Capitol, lawmakers in both chambers have relied largely on testimony from WorkForce West Virginia, which manages the state’s unemployment system.

That trend continued this week, as delegates in the Finance Committee heard from the agency’s Deputy Executive Director Jeff Green and unemployment compensation director Glen Hughes.

Several lawmakers came into the room expecting that unemployment was calculated at 66.67% of weekly wages, a number that had been widely cited in reporting about recent unemployment legislation with no correction from officials.

But WorkForce West Virginia countered that the rate was actually calculated differently, with Green explaining that the rate “is approximately 55%” of wages for workers who earn below a certain amount and a different calculation for workers eligible for the largest weekly unemployment benefit.

That answer, however, opened up a new can of worms. With new numbers before them, there was a lot of scribbling and some back-of-the-napkin math as lawmakers tried to understand exactly what the numbers meant.

The state’s unemployment trust fund is stable, but the bill’s proponents worry about a future crisis

But a major question remains about this legislation, and lawmakers’ stated reasons for pushing it: is the unemployment fund really in trouble?

There was significant disagreement over this on Monday.

Lawmakers critical of the unemployment bill pointed to an analysis from John Deskins , an economist at West Virginia University who is often called by the Legislature to speak about the state’s economy. His report showed that even if unemployment was at 10% during a severe recession, the fund wouldn’t run out for nearly two years.

West Virginia’s unemployment rate last briefly went above 10% during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic and is now at 4.3%.

But during the House Finance Committee meeting, Peter Shirley, an economist who works for the Legislature, testified that new numbers showed the fund would only last for 65 weeks of high unemployment if it continued to lose money at the current rate. That calculation has been challenged by groups like the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.

“While we’re not in crisis today, the clear evidence is that with inaction, we are headed towards crisis,” said Del. Paul Espinosa, R-Jefferson, who compared the situation to the recent financial  struggles of the state’s Public Employees Insurance Agency.

Other lawmakers were unconvinced, noting that there were too many questions about the bill to move forward.

“I think we have a problem, and it’s trying to figure out what’s going on here,” argued Del. Dana Ferrell, R-Kanawha. “And that’s been the theme throughout the two or three hours we’ve been up here.”

An unclear series of benefit changes

The bill would implement a number of changes to the state’s unemployment system, including reducing current unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 24 weeks, raising the amount of money employers pay into the trust fund, and capping the state’s maximum unemployment benefit at a set amount.

Most significantly, people will now see a larger initial weekly unemployment benefit, but that amount will reduce over time, ultimately taking money away from people who need to stay on the support the longest.

The bill will also require people already navigating the struggles of unemployment to search for jobs multiple times a week and gives the option of finding part time work, moves that experts say won’t really help people find a sustainable way back into the workforce.

WorkForce West Virginia officials argued that the changes, despite decreasing benefits over time, would have no effect on workers.

“There is an increase in the early stages of receiving unemployment and then it tapers off towards the latter weeks,” Green said. “So overall, it’s net neutral.”

But that only further confused lawmakers, who wondered how the bill could both not reduce unemployment benefits and prevent the fund from being depleted.

“I’m trying to understand employers as well, not just employees,” said Del. John Hott, R-Grant. “Under the proposed legislation do I pay more or less on paper?”

“There is confusion,” said Del. John Williams, D-Monongalia.

He later added that of the five speakers who presented, “we can’t get anybody to testify today to agree,” on the exact way benefits are calculated and how the bill changes the numbers.

An early analysis from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy suggests that the bill would leave people who receive the maximum unemployment benefit with $3,100 less than they receive currently.

Despite the confusion, critics say that the bill will have a very clear impact on workers

On Monday, House Finance Committee members also heard from the Affiliated Construction Trades, which represents construction workers in the state.

The organization’s director, Justin Williams, argued that the bill would have a notable impact on seasonal workers in industries like construction, who often need to take unemployment at various times of the year rather than use all of the available weeks at once.

Because the bill introduces a shifting scale based on how many weeks someone has been unemployed, the new system could create problems for workers in this position.

“You know, you may be laid off for three months, and then you go back to work for six,” Williams said in an interview.

He added that the bill could put strain on people who previously would have been able to rely on a more consistent unemployment system.

At this point, with so much in the air, and with mass layoffs in the state still fresh, Williams said that lawmakers should return to this bill at another time when the exact changes proposed — and their possible impacts — are clearer.

“We have to work together on this versus just saying ‘oh we’re going to pass this because it gets lazy people off of the couch’ because that’s just a misnomer,” Williams said. “That’s just to make people vote for a bill that they don’t even know what it does.”

Even with that concern, and the broader confusion highlighted Monday, lawmakers have decided to move forward, arguing that while imperfect, the bill is better than doing nothing.

As Del. John Hardy, R-Berkeley, put it, the bill is “the kind of hot mess you get when things are jammed from our neighbors across the hall, things are put together quickly and sent to us.”

Still, before voting for the legislation Hardy said that he was “going to put my arm floaties on, and hold my nose.”

A last-minute bill to cut unemployment benefits has lawmakers confused. They’re rushing it through anyway appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight , West Virginia's civic newsroom.