(Ballotpedia) – Kansas House of Representatives introduced House Bill 2570 on January 23, 2024, which proposed pausing state unemployment insurance benefits when the federal government creates temporary benefit supplements—such as the $600 weekly stipends issued by the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill also proposed the following:
Requiring prospective employers to disclose the identities of applicants who miss job interviews without notification.Defining temporary unemployment insurance benefits as benefits claimed by employees temporarily laid off from a job they expect to resume in under four weeks.Authorizing the secretary of labor to extend temporary unemployment insurance benefits upon request by employers who expect a layoff to last longer than four weeks.Creating an audit process for work search activities in the state’s unemployment insurance information technology system.
Unemployment insurance is a joint federal and state program that provides temporary monetary benefits to eligible laid-off workers who are actively seeking new employment. Qualifying individuals receive unemployment compensation as a percentage of their lost wages in the form of weekly cash benefits while they search for new employment.