Honorable Chris Turner, Chair, House Committee on Business & Industry
FROM:
Jerry McGinty, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB145 by Rodriguez (Relating to removing the waiting period for unemployment benefit eligibility.), As Introduced
Estimated Two-year Net Impact to General Revenue Related Funds for HB145, As Introduced : an impact of $0 through the biennium ending August 31, 2023.
Estimated Two-year Net Impact to Unemployment Trust Fund Account 938: an impact of ($131,576,471) through the biennium ending August 31, 2023.
The bill would make no appropriation but could provide the legal basis for an appropriation of funds to implement the provisions of the bill.
General Revenue-Related Funds, Five- Year Impact:
Fiscal Year
Probable Net Positive/(Negative) Impact to General Revenue Related Funds
2022
$0
2023
$0
2024
$0
2025
$0
2026
$0
All Funds, Five-Year Impact:
Fiscal Year
Probable Savings/(Cost) from Workforce Commission Federal Acct 5026
Probable Savings/(Cost) from UNEMPLOYMENT TRST FND ACCT 938
Change in Number of State Employees from FY 2021
2022
($204,291)
($72,026,239)
1.5
2023
$0
($59,550,232)
1.5
2024
$0
($56,400,804)
1.5
2025
$0
($54,288,472)
1.5
2026
$0
($53,418,798)
1.5
Fiscal Analysis
The bill would amend the Labor Code to remove the waiting period for unemployment benefit eligibility.
Methodology
The bill would increase the payment of unemployment benefits by removing the requirement that claimants must be totally or partially unemployed for a minimum of seven consecutive days, known as the waiting week.
To implement the provisions of the bill, the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) anticipates requiring 1.5 full-time-equivalent (FTE) costs associated with programming the TWC computer system to remove the initial holding of payment for the waiting week. This would result in a one-time cost of $204,291 from the Workforce Commission Federal Funds Account in fiscal year 2022.
Impact on Unemployment Trust Fund
Based on information provided by TWC this analysis assumes the waiting week would not be paid to a claimant until that claimant had been paid two times their weekly benefit amount (WBA) and returned to full-time work or exhausted their unemployment benefits. Thus, the waiting week would not be paid to those claimants who stop filing payment requests for unemployment benefits before reaching their exhaustion date and who do not inform TWC that they have returned to full-time work. Based on historical data, TWC determined that one in five claimants (20%) did not receive a waiting week benefit payment.
According to TWC, multiplying the number of projected annual initial claims for each fiscal year by the projected average weekly benefit amount, then multiplying that result by the 20% discussed above results in an additional anticipated UI payments of $295,684,545 over the next five fiscal years from the Unemployment Trust Fund Account 938.
Technology
TWC anticipates technology costs of $795 for laptop and Office 365 charges associated with the FTE costs above.
Local Government Impact
No fiscal implication to units of local government is anticipated.