July 8, 2009
Senate approves vital unemployment insurance changes
There may not yet be much good news on the budget, but at least lawmakers are doing some good during their extended stay in Raleigh this summer. This afternoon, the state Senate passed two important bills (originally sponsored by Rep. William Wainwright – pictured at right) to modernize the state’s unemployment insurance system. Once signed into law, these bills will assure that the state continues to access its full share of federal economic recovery money and help pump up the economic life preserver that sustains tens of thousands of families.
The first bill, House Bill 877, improves unemployment insurance law in several areas. In keeping with the general eligibility standard that people who pay into the system should receive benefits if they lose a job through “no fault of their own,” the bill improves the law’s treatment of such issues as workers who are forced to quit for compelling family and health reasons, workers who are forced to quit to escape domestic violence and workers who are laid off from part-time jobs. The bill now goes to Governor Perdue’s desk.
The second bill, House Bill 1090, makes clear that an employee who receives severance pay is not necessarily disqualified from receiving the unemployment insurance he or she has earned. Often, of course, severance packages are designed to compensate laid off workers for the cost of re-training and other losses that go above and beyond merely putting food on the table. This bill now goes back to the House for what should be a perfunctory “concurrence” before heading to the Governor.
In other words: Today, with a couple of relatively quiet, under-the-radar actions, lawmakers secured hundreds of millions in federal dollars for people most in need and helped the state economy in a critical period.
Rep. Wainwright and all who supported these bills deserve credit for a job well done.
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