Assembly Democrats are crying foul over six Republican-led bills that passed on the Assembly floor this week.
Republicans say the bills are to reform unemployment insurance to guard against fraud and waste, but Democrats are saying the bills are tone deaf amid economic turbulence.
One bill would change the name of “unemployment insurance” to “re-employment insurance.”
Another of the bills would put people’s unemployment claims under a microscope to be potentially revoked if a company that interviews them offers them a job, and they don’t accept it.
One bill would create a framework for prospective employers to report jobless people on unemployment benefits to the state Department of Workforce Development if they set up interviews and then don’t show up, or ultimately turn down a job offer.
44th Assembly District Representative Ann Roe of Janesville is one Democrat balking at the Republican bills. She says the bills will make it harder for people—including scores of recently-fired federal workers—to get unemployment benefits.
Roe says a period of economic turmoil is the wrong time to set new “barriers” for unemployment benefits. Roe says the bulk of the bills were on the floor for four hours of debate.
But she says almost all were recycled from last session—and she claims Republicans have as little research tied to them as they did the earlier bills.
Roe is a former teacher. She says if a student had handed her the same raft of bills Republicans brought to the floor, she would have given them a failing grade.
Roe acknowledges the surge of joblessness COVID-19 brought in 2020 exposed areas of brittleness in Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance framework—the oldest such system in the U.S.
A few of the other Republican-led bills would beef up guards against fraud in unemployment insurance claims. One bill would add two years to the statute of limitations for investigation of unemployment fraud.
Separate from the Assembly bills, Wisconsin’s current unemployment system already requires “able-bodied” people with unemployment benefits to show proof they’re looking for work in order to continue to qualify for unemployment insurance.
