2021 Regular Session ENROLLED
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 187
BY SENATOR REESE
A RESOLUTION
To urge and request the secretary of the Louisiana Workforce Commission to submit a
written report to the Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations not later
than October 31, 2021, on a plan to implement and administer changes to the
unemployment insurance program proposed in Senate Bill 225 of the 2021 Regular
Session of the Legislature.
WHEREAS, unemployment compensation is a federal-state partnership based upon
federal law, but administered by each state in accordance with the laws of that state; and
WHEREAS, the overall public policy provides for taxes to be collected from an
employer on a base amount of wages the employer pays his employees, for those taxes to
be paid into a system and made available to fund income support to a working person who
loses his job through no fault of his own, and for the perimeters of the program to make it
likely that the income support provided to the worker will be used to help sustain consumer
demand in local areas, particularly during economic downturns; and
WHEREAS, each state's primary role of the federal-state partnership is to directly
administer the program; accept and adjudicate benefit claims and ensure timely payment of
benefits to qualified and eligible claimants; and establish the taxable wage base and assess
and collect those taxes on covered employment from employers; and
WHEREAS, Chapter 11 of Title 23 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950
provides relative to the operation and administration of the state's unemployment insurance
program; and
WHEREAS, Senate Bill 225 of the 2021 Regular Session of the Legislature would
have provided for increases to a claimant's benefits in two significant ways; and
WHEREAS, first, the legislation provided that on the same amount of base-period
wages, a qualified claimant would have been eligible for a proposed one-twelfth to one-
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twentieth of the average of his base-period wages, depending on the state's average
unemployment rate, instead of present law's limitation of one twenty-fifth of the average of
the claimant's base period wages; and
WHEREAS, second, the legislation increased the maximum weekly benefit amount
that any qualified claimant could have received by thirty dollars per week in years that
Procedures 1, 2, and 3 are applicable, and sixteen dollars per week in years that Procedure
4 is applicable; and
WHEREAS, Senate Bill 225 also made changes to the number of weeks that a
claimant could claim his maximum amount of benefits depending on the state's average
unemployment rate so that when the rate was above nine percent, a claimant would be
eligible for a maximum of one-twentieth of the average of his base period wages per week
for up to twenty weeks and when the rate is at or below five and one-half percent, a claimant
would be eligible for a maximum of one-twelfth of the average of his base period wages per
week for twelve weeks; and
WHEREAS, to further help the system accomplish its goals, the bill created an
extended unemployment insurance program for claimants enrolled and participating in
approved training that provided up to eight additional weeks of benefits; and
WHEREAS, several states have implemented unemployment insurance programs
similar to the proposed changes in Senate Bill 225, and those programs have yielded positive
results, including workforce attachment and solvency of the state's unemployment trust fund.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana
does hereby urge and request the secretary of the Louisiana Workforce Commission to
submit a written report to the Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations, and as
required by R.S. 24:771 and 772, not later than October 31, 2021, on a plan to implement
and administer changes to the unemployment insurance program proposed by Senate Bill
225 of the 2021 Regular Session of the Legislature.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the plan shall include all of the following:
(1) An outline of administrative steps necessary to implement the provisions of
Senate Bill 225.
(2) Specific challenges to implementation and strategies to address those challenges.
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(3) Resources required for implementation and possible sources of funding, including
funding from the administrative grant, Reed Act, CARES, or other federal funding and the
commission's penalty and interest fund.
(4) A timeline for implementation.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the
secretary of the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
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