GOP-crafted unemployment reform bill draws objections from Democrats

The Kansas House offered an unemployment insurance bill that would potentially penalize applicants who missed job interviews and suspend state benefits in some situations.

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State News

February 22, 2024 - 3:08 PM

Rep. Sean Tarwater, R-Stilwell, said the Kansas House's unemployment reform bill includes new incentives for people to find jobs by attempting to track people who skip job interviews and by suspending state benefits if federal emergency aid surges. Photo by (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — The Kansas House wrestled with details but didn’t amend Wednesday an unemployment insurance bill potentially penalizing applicants who missed job interviews and suspending state benefits in extraordinary circumstances when federal aid surpassed the amount of state support to the unemployed.

“We actually get people back to work, because that’s what it’s all about, right?” said Rep. Sean Tarwater, a Republican from Stilwell and chairman of the House Commerce, Labor and Economic Development Committee.

The $1.4 billion balance in the state’s unemployment trust fund compelled drafters of the bill to lower unemployment insurance premiums for companies that had positive balances, which meant the company contributed more to their account than had been used by their laid off employees. The trust fund tax would be raised on businesses with negative balances, but those companies would be granted a one-time write off of their negative balances in 2025.

Tarwater said one of the motivations for House Bill 2570 was the realization unemployed people accepting state jobless aid were complying with a mandate to submit resumes to potential employers, but skipping — or ghosting — employers who offered a job interview. He said the solution was creation of a reporting system at the Kansas Department of Labor to help businesses to report people who had blown off interviews.

“What we’re finding in the business community is that there are an increasing number of people who send resumes in and they don’t show up for an interview,” Tarwater said.

Rep. Jason Probst, a Hutchinson Democrat on the House commerce committee, said the bill had good and bad features. But he said the new portal for filing reports on people missing interviews would be a costly endeavor unlikely to do much to nail people more keen to cash an unemployment check than secure a job.

He said he was skeptical employers would take the time necessary to input the information on interview ghosts into a Department of Labor computer system.

“There’s a lot of people in this building, and a lot of conversations, about the growth of government,” Probst told House members. “Any time you are forcing a department to create a form or a portal or a new website or a new engagement with the public that didn’t exist before, you are expanding and growing government. This is the bloat that you say you don’t like. This expands and grows state government and doesn’t actually solve the problem.”

 Rep. Ford Carr, D-Wichita, offered an amendment to strip from the bill the entire section on job interview ghosting. He said the provision didn’t reflect real-world conditions in which a person out of work might submit dozens of applications, but not keep up with offers of job interviews. That situation could unfairly land a person on the Department of Labor’s list of people with insufficient interest in getting a job, he said.

Tarwater convinced the House to vote down the amendment. He pointed to a Fortune news article that said Gen Z people ranging in age from 28 to 43 treated would-be employers as a “bad date.” They did so by ghosting employers by backing out of interviews or not showing up the first day on a job, Tarwater said.

He said the article asserted 93% of Gen Z members said they had punted a job interview and 87% said they hadn’t shown up on the first day of a job as requested. That was the kind of attitude that prompted discussion about creating a Kansas unemployment reform bill, Tarwater said.

Rep. Dan Osman, an Overland Park Democrat, attempted to draw a parallel by asking Tarwater about a candidate for the Legislature who was invited to make an appearance during the campaign but decided to skip the event without notice. Osman asked whether that candidate would be guilty of ghosting. In response, Tarwater said a candidate missing a scheduled event wasn’t guilty of ghosting in terms of the unemployment bill.

“Ok, all right, thank you very much,” Osman told House members during debate on the bill. “It’s good to know that we are immune from this legislation.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Tarwater replied. “Are you kidding me?”

Rep. Kyle Hoffman, a Coldwater Republican, warned Tarwater about use of inappropriate language at the microphone on the House floor.

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