PORT ANGELES — Changes in the state’s unemployment insurance program that gradually take effect now through 2005 are expected to hit new businesses hardest, a state Employment Security official said Monday.
“These are the most major changes in the unemployment insurance program that Washington state has ever seen,” said Judy Johnson, Employment Security program coordinator, speaking to an audience of about 100 at the weekly Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant.
“It affects everyone.”
The legislation, Second Engrossed Senate Bill 6097, is the first major revision of the unemployment insurance system since the 1970s, Johnson said.
Effective in 2005, new employers will be required to pay the industry average rate plus 15 percent, an issue that raised some hackles among chamber members at the luncheon.
Johnson said she could not speak for state lawmakers who proposed the increase for new businesses, but said to her knowledge it was because “new employers don’t pay their fair share of benefits,” and too many are going out of business before they do.
She suggested that if business owners did not like the change, they should contact their state lawmakers.
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The rest of the story appears in the Tuesday Peninsula Daily News.
