Obama Jobs Bill Proposes To Ban Discrimination Against Unemployed
As almost everyone knows, last week President Obama presented a $447 billion jobs bill, called the American Jobs Act, to a joint session of Congress full of proposals designed to stimulate the lagging U.S. economy. What many people probably don't know is that, tucked into the bill, is a provision that would make it unlawful for employers to refuse to hire someone because that person is unemployed. This small part of the stimulus bill would create an entirely new protected class under federal discrimination law—the unemployed person. If enacted it could expose employers to a raft of new employment discrimination lawsuits.
What The Bill Says
Section 375 of the proposed bill actually has several anti-discrimination provisions. First, it prohibits employers and employment agencies from refusing to hire an individual “because of the individual’s status as unemployed,” including prohibiting employers from directing employment agencies to do so. It also contains a broad anti-retaliation provision prohibiting employers from interfering or refusing to hire someone because the person reports a violation of the Act. The Act will provide many of the same remedies available under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act—the same federal law that prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, or sex—including the right to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), or file a lawsuit to recover money damages and attorney fees.
The bill would also prohibit employers and employment agencies from expressly advertising in written job posts that unemployed persons are automatically disqualified from applying.
The Rub: Full Employment...For Employment Lawyers
While the bill expressly states that it is not intended to preclude employers from considering an individual’s employment history or even from “examining the reasons underlying an individual’s status as unemployed,” that subtle distinction will be a small comfort to employers. Employers routinely scrutinize employment history, and employment “gaps” on a resume have always been a red flag to hiring managers. Under this new law, however, employers would need to walk a very fine line between scrutinizing only the “reasons underlying” unemployment, while avoiding letting the fact the person is unemployed to begin with affect a hiring decision.
Those types of mental gymnastics are not only difficult for hiring managers to keep straight while reviewing job applicants, the distinction will be even harder to prove in court if the employer is later sued. As a practical matter, any unemployed person rejected from a job could demonstrate a prima facie claim for discrimination simply by showing he or she was unemployed and then didn’t get the job. Further, the cases will invariably turn on "yes you did, no I didn't" factual disputes about the hiring decision: did the employer make the decision because of reasons underlying the person's unemployment (lawful) or simply because the person was unemployed (unlawful)? Because of those subtle factual nuances, and procedural rules that presume the truth of a plaintiff's allegations until trial, it could be virtually impossible to get even baseless claims dismissed before trial, such as at summary judgment. That makes defending those cases much more difficult and expensive.
While much remains unsettled about the state of the U.S. economy, including whether Congress will even pass the American Jobs Act, one thing is very certain. If the current anti-discrimination provision in the American Jobs Act passes, employers will be seeing a lot more discrimination claims from a whole new protected class of protected people--the unhired unemployed.
Idaho Enacts Law Providing Tax Credits for Private Employers
On the final day of the sixty-first Legislature, Idaho lawmakers passed a bill which provides varying levels of tax credits for private employers who hire at least one employee after April 15, 2011. Governor Otter signed the legislation amending Idaho Code section 63-3029F on April 13.
In order to qualify for the credit, a newly hired employee must receive qualifying employer-provided health care benefits as determined by the Idaho State Tax Commission and be employed in a county within in the state of Idaho with an unemployment rate at or greater than the benchmarked annual employment rate as determined by the Department of Labor on the date the new employee was hired. That benchmark is either ten percent (10%) or more at average annual earnings of twelve dollars ($12.00) or more per hour, or less than ten percent (10%) at average annual earnings of fifteen dollars ($15.00) or more per hour. The available credit is not earned, however, until the new employee has worked for a minimum of nine consecutive months with any part of the qualifying period ending during the taxable year for which the credit is claimed. Additionally, the credit is not available when an employer acquires a trade or business or who operates in a place of business the same or substantially identical trade or business as operated by another qualifying business within the prior twelve months. Employees transferred from a related business shall also not be included in the computation of the credit.
The amount of the credit varies between 2-6% depending on how the employer is rated for unemployment tax purposes. Employers with a positive rating earn the highest amount of the credit while deficit rated business earn the lower amount. The credit is calculated based on the gross salary paid to the eligible new employee during the initial twelve months of employment and claimed during the qualifying taxable year.
The Tax Commission is charged with promulgating rules implementing the legislation. To claim the credit, rated employers must attach to the employer's income tax return the taxable wage rate notice issued by the department of labor for the income tax year for which the credit is claimed. An estimate of the financial impact from the Department of Labor and Division of Financial Management indicates that the legislation could draw $7.9 million per year from the general fund while generating $25.3 million in state tax revenue.
This legislation is very complex and may be difficult for employers to determine whether they may quality for the credit. If you have questions, please contact your attorney.
President Obama to Sign Jobs Bill Today
President Obama is today expected to sign the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act, which in its final form passed The House of Representatives 217-201 on March 4 and the Senate 68-29 on March 17. Click here to download the final version of the HIRE Act.
Key provisions of the HIRE Act include:
- An exemption from Social Security payroll taxes for private employers for each worker hired in 2010 who previously had been unemployed for at least 60 days;
- A $1,000 income tax credit, or a credit of 6.2% of total wages paid, for private employers for each new employee hired in 2010 and retained for at least 52 weeks and claimed on the employer's 2011 income tax return;
- An extension of the small business “expensing” tax break for one year, allowing small businesses to continue writing off up to $250,000 of certain capital expenditures instead of depreciating them over time;
- A $4.6 billion Build America Bonds program, which would provide an optional direct subsidy payment in lieu of a tax credit for tax credit bonds issued for certain school and energy projects; and
- Expanded federal aid for highway programs estimated to save or create 1 million jobs.
As previously reported in the Stoel Rives World of Employment, a slightly different version of the HIRE Act passed through the Senate on February 24. While the bill was in the House, several changes were to the Act, including increased funding to the Build America Bonds program and greater flexibility to the hiring tax credit program.
Use Workshare Program to Cut Costs and Keep Workers
Are you looking for ways to hang on to staff, yet reduce costs? Those goals are not necessarily mutually exclusive if you choose to participate in your state's workshare program. A workshare program allows your employees to collect some unemployment benefits but continue working part time. Here's an article from the Center for Law and Social Policy that gives additional detail.
Seventeen states have such programs: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont and Washington. For a sample of a workshare law, see Section 1279.5 of California's unemployment insurance code.
Each state’s program is a little different, but they have common attributes. We’ll use Oregon’s program as an example.
Under Oregon’s program, the employer files a plan with the state saying that it is reducing the hours of 3 or more employees by at least 20%, but not more than 40%. Once the plan is approved, workers who otherwise qualify for unemployment insurance benefits get wages and unemployment. The amount of the unemployment benefit is equal to the percentage reduction in hours. For example, if the employer reduces work hours by 20% (instead of laying off 20% of its workforce), its eligible employees would receive 80% of their regular pay and 20% of what they would normally be entitled to for unemployment.
The benefits are obvious: 1) You get to keep your staff so that you can quickly ramp back up when the economy turns around'; 2) your employees get to keep their jobs rather than being laid off, and they receive replacement wages for a portion of what they have lost; 3) and the State gets to reduce the number of laid off workers. It’s a win-win-win!
Of course, it wouldn’t be fun if there weren’t also some disadvantages: Employers will have higher unemployment insurance tax rates and employees will burn through their unemployment insurance benefits, which might be needed later in case of a complete layoff.
Your state labor department’s website, such as Oregon's Bureau of Labor and Industries, will get you started on seeing if this program meets your needs. And, of course, we are always available to assist.
Oregon Supreme Court: Corporate Directors Not Employees
The Oregon Supreme Court recently ruled that a corporation's board of directors are not employees, and therefore not subject to Oregon's unemployment tax. In Necanicum Investment Co. v. Oregon Employment Department, the Supreme Court reversed a 2007 Oregon Court of Appeals decision that had held unemployment tax should be assessed on the fees paid to the directors. The Supreme Court instead reasoned that because the directors were not acting in the capacity of employees, no employer-employee relationship was formed and therefore there was no basis for the Employment Department to apply the tax.
This decision is good news for corporations who pay fees to their directors; however, many corporate directors act both as directors and also as employees. In those cases, the corporation will still be liable for unemployment taxes on any wages paid to the directors in their roles as employees.
