Failure of House Bill 1078 to Pass is Good News for Small Business

May 3, 2023

Failure of House Bill 1078 to Pass is Good News for Small Business

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Tony Gagliardi, Colorado State Director, tony.gagliardi@nfib.org, or Tony Malandra, Senior Media Manager, anthony.malandra@nfib.org DENVER, May 3, 2023—The failure of House Bill 1078 to pass the Senate Business Committee late last night brought good news for Colorado’s small businesses this morning. “Unemployment benefits are a straightforward matter: employers pay into the trust fund so workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own can collect benefits to carry them through a tough time. Benefits were never meant to go to anyone else,” said Tony Gagliardi, Colorado state director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s leading small-business association. Gagliardi thanked the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) for its opposition to HB 1078, which called for giving UI beneficiaries an extra $35 a week per dependent. In a special NFIB webinar on the state of the UI trust fund and related legislation, Daniel Chase, executive director of CDLE, said that “The department has opposed that bill because we are not comfortable opening up any new trust fund money while we’re still heavily in debt.” Doing so, said Chase, would delay solvency by several years, “CDLE’s opposition was critical to the success in stopping HB 1078,” said Gagliardi. “I’d like to think this would put paid to the matter, but this is not a Legislature comprised of people with much business sense, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see it resurface in 2024.” Keep up with the latest Colorado small-business news at www.nfib.com/colorado or by following NFIB on Twitter @NFIB_CO or on Facebook @NFIB.CO ### For 80 years, NFIB has been advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, and member-driven association. Since its founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses and remains so today. For more information, please visit nfib.com. NFIB Colorado 1700 Lincoln Street, 17th Floor Denver, CO 80203 303-860-1778 www.nfib.com/colorado Twitter: @NFIB_CO Facebook: NFIB.CO