The measure would permit employers to proceed utilizing the unemployment insurance coverage evaluation price set for 2020 earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky lawmakers gave ultimate passage Monday to a business-backed invoice that would supply reduction to employers on their unemployment insurance coverage tax assessments.
The Home voted 88-5 to ship Home Invoice 144 to Gov. Andy Beshear.
One other key a part of the invoice would spend $242 million in federal pandemic help to replenish the state’s unemployment insurance coverage belief fund. Like different states, Kentucky was overwhelmed by file waves of claims for jobless help attributable to the coronavirus.
The measure would permit employers to proceed utilizing the unemployment insurance coverage evaluation price set for 2020 earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The suspended price would save Kentucky companies, on common, about $70 per worker, lawmakers had been advised.
Republican Rep. Russell Webber, the invoice’s lead sponsor, has stated the locked-in price would give companies “some respiratory room” whereas making an attempt to deal with different challenges, together with rising inflation and ongoing provide chain issues.
Some lawmakers have been essential of giving reduction to employers whereas one other invoice would revamp guidelines for unemployment advantages for laid-off Kentuckians.
That separate measure, which lawmakers despatched to the governor final week, would improve work-search necessities for folks receiving jobless advantages and tie the size of time recipients get advantages to the unemployment price. That provision may reduce the variety of profit weeks by greater than half in instances of low jobless charges.
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