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90_HB1088
New Act
Creates the Re-employment Support Program Act. Creates a
program similar to the Unemployment Insurance program, to be
administered by the Department of Employment Security and
funded with appropriations from general revenue funds of the
State, for employees who lose their job for reasons other
than misconduct, are ineligible for Unemployment Insurance,
and would be eligible for the Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF) program created by the federal Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of
1996. Funds used shall qualify for the State's maintenance
of effort requirements under the TANF program. Eligibility
for benefits shall be determined in coordination with the
Department of Human Services.
LRB9003716SMdv
LRB9003716SMdv
1 AN ACT regarding support for unemployed persons.
2 Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
3 represented in the General Assembly:
4 Section 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the
5 Re-employment Support Act.
6 Section 5. Findings and purpose.
7 (a) Families, children and the State of Illinois all
8 benefit when families are able to support themselves through
9 work. Work keeps the poorest families from needing welfare.
10 The encouragement and promotion of work is a high priority of
11 the State.
12 (b) Many poor workers who support families lose their
13 jobs from time to time for reasons other than misconduct
14 connected with work. It is important to help these families
15 become re-employed quickly and reduce the time that they
16 spend between jobs.
17 (c) The Unemployment Insurance program is designed to
18 help workers quickly locate new jobs, replace workers' wages
19 during the period between jobs so that their families can
20 stay out of poverty, conserve workers' basic assets (such as
21 home, car, and modest savings), and keep workers connected to
22 the labor force and off welfare. The Unemployment Insurance
23 program has been effective in accomplishing these results for
24 the workers who qualify for it. When a worker receives
25 Unemployment Insurance after losing a job, the worker's
26 family is far less likely to fall into poverty than if the
27 worker did not receive Unemployment Insurance.
28 (d) Because of rules that limit workers' eligibility
29 Unemployment Insurance, many workers who lose their jobs for
30 reasons other than misconduct connected to the work do not
31 qualify for Unemployment Insurance when they lose a job. A
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1 large majority of poor workers, particularly single mothers,
2 do not qualify for Unemployment Insurance. Many of these
3 working poor mothers have had to seek help from the Aid to
4 Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program to sustain
5 their families when they are between jobs. It is
6 significantly harder for a person receiving AFDC to become
7 re-employed than it is for a person receiving Unemployment
8 Insurance. For many workers, the desire to "stay off
9 welfare" is a motivating factor in their efforts to become
10 re-employed.
11 (e) AFDC is being replaced in Illinois by the Temporary
12 Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Under federal
13 TANF rules, persons may receive TANF benefits for a maximum
14 of 60 months in a lifetime. A working poor parent who is
15 forced to sustain her family with TANF benefits during
16 periods between jobs could exhaust her lifetime TANF benefits
17 while she still has young children. The worker would then
18 have no means to sustain the family between jobs. The family
19 would be forced to quickly deplete its assets (such as home,
20 car, and modest savings) and would incur serious risk of
21 falling into the deepest poverty, making it even harder for
22 the worker to become re-employed.
23 (f) For these reasons, the preferred re-employment
24 strategy in Illinois is Unemployment Insurance. The
25 Unemployment Insurance program, however, is funded by a
26 special tax on employers, and it is not likely to be expanded
27 enough to cover as many workers as need it, especially poor
28 workers supporting families. It is not the purpose of this
29 Act to undermine, replace, state an opinion about, or
30 otherwise affect the Unemployment Insurance program itself or
31 the processes in place for funding, amending, and operating
32 it.
33 (g) The purpose of this Act is to expand the coverage of
34 the re-employment strategy exemplified by the Unemployment
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1 Insurance program through creation of the Re-employment
2 Support program, to be funded with general revenues. The
3 Re-employment Support program is to be operated by the
4 Department of Employment Security side-by-side with the
5 Unemployment Insurance program. The Re-employment Support
6 program is to serve workers who do not qualify for
7 Unemployment Insurance, for reasons other than misconduct
8 connected with work, and who would otherwise likely resort to
9 the TANF program to sustain their families while they search
10 for re-employment. The intent is to facilitate early
11 re-employment for workers and reduce TANF usage in the State.
12 Section 10. Re-employment Support Program. There is
13 established a Re-employment Support program, to be operated
14 by the Department of Employment Security ("Department")
15 side-by-side with the Unemployment Insurance program, and
16 funded with appropriations from the general revenues of the
17 State.
18 Section 15. Eligibility. Workers shall be eligible for
19 the benefits described in Section 20 based upon the following
20 factors, which the Department shall further define by rules:
21 (a) The worker must be the caretaker of minor children,
22 who are the worker's relatives and live in the worker's home.
23 For purposes of this subsection, the Department shall employ
24 the same definitions of "caretaker relative", "minor child",
25 and "living with" the relative, or analogous terms as those
26 used by the Department of Human Services in administering the
27 TANF program.
28 (b) The worker's family, after the worker's loss of
29 employment, must meet financial eligibility requirements
30 applicable to recipients of TANF benefits, as defined by the
31 Department of Human Services. The Department need not
32 administer its own financial eligibility verification system.
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1 The Department shall, in consultation with the Department of
2 Human Services, adopt by rule a means of establishing
3 financial eligibility for Re-employment Support benefits by
4 reference to financial eligibility determinations already
5 made by other agencies for other means-tested programs, such
6 as food stamps, Medicaid, energy assistance, or the federal
7 Earned Income Credit. For workers who do not have a
8 determination from another agency that satisfies the rule,
9 the Department shall establish by rule, a system of referral
10 to the Department of Human Services for a quick determination
11 of financial eligibility.
12 (c) The worker must have recently been separated from
13 employment for reasons other than "misconduct" connected with
14 work, as defined in the Unemployment Insurance program, or a
15 voluntary quit without good cause. Good cause need not be
16 attributable to the employer, and it shall consist of
17 personal, family, or other reasons that prevent continuation
18 on the job.
19 (d) As of the date of separation from work, the worker
20 must have been employed in at least twelve of the previous
21 sixteen weeks at a level that produced earnings at least at
22 the level of half-time work at the minimum wage. The worker
23 shall submit corroboration of the earnings, if available, and
24 shall otherwise attest to the earnings under penalty of
25 perjury. The Department may attempt to verify the work
26 activity and the separation from employment by contacting the
27 employer or employers. Failure of the employer to verify the
28 employee's statements as to length of employment and
29 separation from employment shall not be proof of the truth or
30 falsity of those statements.
31 (e) As of the date of separation from work, the worker
32 must not have been receiving cash benefits from the TANF
33 program that are payable to recipients who are working.
34 (f) The worker must apply for Unemployment Insurance and
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1 be found ineligible by a claims adjudicator. If the worker
2 receives Re-employment Support benefits and later wins an
3 appeal from the claims adjudicator's denial of Unemployment
4 Insurance, the retroactive Unemployment Insurance benefits
5 shall be offset to refund the Re-employment Support benefits
6 that were paid while the appeal was pending.
7 (g) The worker must comply with the Unemployment
8 Insurance rules requiring a recipient to be able to work,
9 available for work, and actively seeking work.
10 Section 20. Benefits.
11 (a) An eligible worker shall receive a weekly
12 Re-employment Support benefit amount equal to the amount that
13 would be payable based upon the worker's earnings under the
14 Unemployment Insurance program, plus the dependent allowance
15 for the worker's children that would be paid under the
16 Unemployment Insurance program, provided that the total
17 benefit, when expressed as a monthly amount, shall not be
18 less than the TANF benefit payable to a family the size of
19 the worker's family.
20 (b) Re-employment Support benefits shall be paid on the
21 same schedule and in the same manner as Unemployment
22 Insurance benefits.
23 (c) Re-employment Support benefits shall be available to
24 workers for a maximum of 13 weeks during each period of
25 unemployment, and benefits shall not be payable for more than
26 2 periods of unemployment in any 12 month period.
27 Section 25. Cessation of benefits. Re-employment
28 Support benefits shall cease upon the occurrence of any of
29 the following events:
30 (a) The worker is awarded and receives Unemployment
31 Insurance;
32 (b) The worker becomes employed at a level that would
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1 terminate eligibility for Unemployment Insurance;
2 (c) The worker fails to comply with ongoing eligibility
3 requirements regarding ability to work, availability for
4 work, and active search for work; or
5 (d) The worker has received 13 weeks of benefits in one
6 period of unemployment.
7 Section 30. Methods of administration. The Department
8 shall administer the Re-employment Support program to the
9 greatest extent possible in the same way as the Unemployment
10 Insurance program including the system for notices to
11 applicants and recipients, administrative appeals, and
12 publicizing the availability of the program.
13 Section 35. Misrepresentation and fraud. Applicants for
14 and recipients of Re-employment Support benefits are subject
15 to the same obligations, rules, penalties, criminal
16 liability, and procedures involving misrepresentation and
17 fraud as are in effect under the Unemployment Insurance
18 program.
19 Section 40. Coordination with Department of Human
20 Services. The Department shall coordinate administration of
21 the Re-employment Support program with the Department of
22 Human Services, and shall ensure that expenditures for the
23 Re-employment Support program qualify towards the State's
24 maintenance of effort obligation under the TANF program, as
25 provided under the Personal Responsibility and Work
26 Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, as it may from time
27 to time be amended.
28 Section 45. Coordination of TANF Program with
29 Re-employment Support Program.
30 (a) The Department of Human Services shall coordinate
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1 the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program
2 with the Department of Employment Security's Re-employment
3 Support program, including the following specific areas:
4 (1) Arranging for financial eligibility
5 determination under subsection (b) of Section 15 of the
6 Reemployment Support Act;
7 (2) Ensuring that expenditures for the Reemployment
8 Support program are countable for the State's TANF
9 maintenance of effort obligation; and
10 (3) To the extent consistent with federal law,
11 defining financial eligibility under TANF in ways that
12 facilitate eligibility determinations in the
13 Re-employment Support program and the counting of
14 expenditures in that program towards TANF maintenance of
15 effort obligations.
16 (b) In determining TANF eligibility for former
17 recipients of Re-employment Support benefits who become
18 employed prior to the exhaustion of 13 weeks of Re-employment
19 Support benefits and who apply for TANF benefits as a
20 supplement to their earnings, the Department of Human
21 Services shall use the income counting rules applicable to
22 recipients of TANF benefits, as opposed to those applicable
23 to applicants for TANF benefits.