FINAL BILL REPORT

HJM 4031

As Passed Legislature

Brief Description: Urging extension of temporary extended unemployment compensation.

Sponsors: By Representatives Conway, McIntire, Kenney, Wood, Santos, Chase, Murray, Sullivan, Simpson, G., McDermott, Morrell, Kagi, Darneille and Hudgins.

House Committee on Commerce & Labor

Background:

Eligible unemployed workers may receive up to 30 weeks of regular unemployment benefits. (Beginning in the first month after the Commissioner of the Employment Security Department finds that the state's unemployment rate is 6.8 percent or less, they may receive up to 26 weeks of benefits.) Until early in 2004, individuals who exhausted regular benefits may have been eligible for further benefits through the temporary extended unemployment compensation (TEUC) program or the extended benefits program. Eligibility for benefits under the TEUC or extended benefit programs has expired.

Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation

The TEUC program was first authorized in March 2002 and then extended in January 2003 and May 2003. To receive TEUC benefits, eligible unemployed workers must have exhausted regular benefits before December 21, 2003.

In most states, eligible unemployed workers were eligible to receive up to 13 weeks of these benefits. In Washington and other states with high unemployment rates, eligible unemployed workers were eligible to receive up to 26 weeks of these benefits. Eligibility criteria for these benefits differed somewhat from that for regular benefits, but the weekly benefit amount was the same.

These benefits were 100 percent federally-funded. Contribution-paying employers were not charged and reimbursable employers were not billed for these benefits.

Extended Benefits

The extended benefits program "triggered on" in Washington on January 6, 2002, and "triggered off" on January 10, 2004, based on the state unemployment rate and conditions specified in state law. No payments of these benefits were authorized for weeks beginning after January 10, 2004.

Eligible unemployed workers were eligible to receive up to 13 weeks of these benefits, but most received no more than nine weeks. Eligibility criteria for these benefits also differed somewhat from that for regular benefits, but the weekly benefit amount was the same.

These benefits were 50 percent federally-funded and 50 percent state-funded. Contribution-paying employers were not charged for these benefits, but most reimbursable employers were billed for these benefits.

Summary:

The Congress and the President are urged to extend and make retroactive federal temporary unemployment compensation benefits.

Votes on Final Passage:

House 95  0

Senate 47  0