Unemployment Insurance Reforms Help Small Businesses

Date: May 07, 2015

Jerrod Shouse, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, released the following statement today in response to Gov. Mary Fallin’s signing of HB 1001, an unemployment insurance reform bill. The governor signed the bill Wednesday. 

“This is a big deal for small business, because it makes it a lot easier for them to challenge bogus unemployment claims. What the bill does is it allows employers to protest an unemployment claim as soon as they terminate an employee for cause. 

“What’s been happening is that employers will terminate an employee for a serious error in their performance or judgement, such as violating the business’ code of ethics, stealing money or property from the business, threatening co-workers or lying. Months later, the former employee will file for unemployment, but the employer has moved on and might not remember exactly what the employee did or why he or she shouldn’t be allowed under the law to collect unemployment benefits. So, the employer has to take the time to research the former employee’s files or do nothing and allow the former employee to abuse the system.

“By allowing employers to preemptively challenge the claim of an employee who’s just been terminated for cause, HB 1001 will make things easier for employers and help stop the kind of abuse that drives up the cost of unemployment insurances and places unnecessary financial pressure on small, family businesses.

“HB 1001 also changes how unemployment insurance rates are assessed for new businesses. In the past, the rate was based on a rolling formula based on the average of all taxpayer rates over the previous calendar year. HB 1001 changes that so new businesses pay a rate of just 1.5 percent for the first two years.

“On behalf of our members, I want to thank Sen. Dan Newberry and Rep. Randy McDaniel for shepherding this bill through the Legislature and Governor Fallin for signing it into law. HB 1001 will provide some much-needed relief for small businesses.”

NFIB/Oklahoma is the state’s leading small-business association with over 4,000 dues-paying members representing a cross section of the state’s economy. Learn more at www.NFIB.com/OK or follow @NFIB_OK on Twitter.

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