One law that passed this legislative session that you may not have heard of changes unemployment benefits in the state.
It limits the length of time one can receive benefits going from twenty-six weeks to only twenty weeks when the state's unemployment rate is above five-percent and a maximum of twelve weeks when the rate is BELOW five-percent. How will that impact the jobless?
The author of the original bill, Republican Representative Troy Romero says when the state’s unemployment rate is low, there isn’t a need for people to collect benefits for so long.
“There were one hundred thousand jobs available and nine thousand people on unemployment. There were jobs for them to get.”
However, Executive Director of Invest Louisiana Jan Muller says using the state’s average shortchanges residents, especially in smaller towns and regions.
“If you live in a small town and a plant closes or the oil sector is seeing decline, unemployment in your area could be twenty percent.
You won’t care about how low the state average is and it could take a long time to find something.”
Representative Romero says an individual can receive up to an additional eight weeks if they enroll in workforce development training and that sometimes people need to be motivated to work.
But, Muller says that the original law was working well and did not need revision and it seems that it was updated based on biased presumption.
“This comes from the notion that people are just lazy and don’t want to work and want to take from the government, but when someone loses their job through no fault of their own, they want to get back to work.”
The new law takes effect on January first.
