Senate panel moves to expand unemployment eligibility for college students

A Senate panel approved a raft of changes to the state’s unemployment system that would expand eligibility for university students, bar the mandatory return of some overpayments, and expand awards for those caring for individuals with developmental disabilities.

Labor Commissioner Rob Asaro-Angelo described the bill, which the Senate Labor Committee approved in a bipartisan 4-1 vote, as a solution to some of the problems officials identified in the unemployment system during the pandemic, when runaway jobless claims drained the state’s unemployment fund.

“Through our learnings the past few years, we’ve identified legislative changes to our system that will further improve its accessibility and overall functionality,” Asaro-Angelo told the panel.

The bill’s advancement comes about two weeks after labor officials unveiled a new application for unemployment benefits that they say will make applying for benefits easier. That change, too, was driven by problems the system faced during the pandemic.

Foremost among the proposed changes in the bill that advanced Monday is a provision that would bar the state from denying unemployment claims because the claimant is a full-time university student or attends certain job training programs.

It would also remove provisions requiring students to earn sufficient wages to receive unemployment benefits. That removal would also fix a technical error in state law; legislators struck the provision’s definition of sufficient wages from the books more than 20 years ago.

“Under the current policy, if you are a student working to put yourself through school and lose your job, you will then be at a much greater risk of dropping out as you will no longer have the income to support your schooling,” Asaro-Angelo said. “This policy has kept thousands of hard-working student applicants from receiving benefits they had earned.”

The proposed eligibility expansion drew opposition from some business groups who feared it would raise rates on businesses that hire college students.

“Our only concern is what this does to the rates and how this impacts small businesses if this does indeed cause rates to go up,” said Eileen Kean, state director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses. “Somebody carrying 12 credits should have the chance to collect if they are unemployed during the school semester.”

In New Jersey, unemployment rates are set based on the general health of the unemployment fund — it’s poor but healing after being drained by pandemic joblessness — and a ratio of an individual business’ use of unemployment benefits to unemployment taxes paid.

That means, all other things being the same, a business that hires college students but does not retain them between semesters — or that terminates their employment — could pay more under the bill if those workers were only ineligible because of their status as a student and their benefits are enough to shift a businesses position in unemployment tax tables.

Bill sponsor Sen. Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester) dismissed those concerns.

“I believe that is not a valid concern,” he told the New Jersey Monitor. “I think the potential costs are de minimus.”

Other provisions would require the commissioner of labor to waive recovery of overpayments to unemployment claimants upon their request if the overpayment happened as a result of employer or government error, or when state unemployment officials find recovery would be “contrary to equity and good conscience.”

The provision, which would also bar clawbacks when a claimant is dead or cannot work because of a disability, does not apply in cases of fraud.

The legislation would also allow filers to claim adults with disabilities as dependents so long as the disability began before they turned 22 years old.

The bill passed along with three other employment-related measures.

One would add labor unions to a list of topics that employers are barred from requiring their workers to attend meetings on, expanding an existing prohibition that already includes religion and other political matters.

Supporters said the provision would prevent union-busting meetings.

“Really, what the bill addresses is the coercive nature of some of those meetings,” said Eric Richard, legislative affairs director for the New Jersey State AFL-CIO.

Kean, who noted Colorado Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a similar bill last month over concerns about its constitutionality, warned it could run afoul of an employer’s free speech protections. New Jersey’s bill, which is substantively similar, does not limit what employers can say. It only prevents them from requiring employees to attend certain meetings.

Another bill calls for the state to siphon a fraction — 0.02 percentage points — of New Jersey’s 0.3825% unemployment tax for workers to pay for the administration of jobless benefits.

The last bill would allow the labor commissioner to directly appoint three additional members to a board that reviews final unemployment appeals. If such temporary appointments are made, the board would split into two three-member panels to weigh appeals.

Asaro-Angelo said the provision would be needed when demand for unemployment benefits is high.

“At its most basic, during a time of heightened claim activity, we’re able to hire more claims adjudicators, more phone staff,” he said. “The appeal tribunal can hire more appeals specialists, but the Board of Review — which is the top level of appeal — because they have the word ‘board’ in their name, they are treated like every other board and commission in the state.”