A Special News Report About Life On the Job -- and Trends Taking Shape There
SUPPORTERS PUSH for legislation to reform unemployment insurance.</br></br>It's late in the congressional session, but a group that includes business, state agencies and labor unions has reached a consensus on long-discussed unemployment-insurance reform. Their proposal would boost state unemployment funds, lower the corporate tax burden and extend benefits to part-time workers. "We believe it's possible," says Rich Hobbie, unemployment-insurance director for the Interstate Conference of Employment Security Agencies.</br></br>The plan calls for tapping billions of dollars generated by a 0.2% payroll surtax that employers have paid since the 1970s. By 1987 the surtax had repaid the loans for which it was levied in the first place. But companies still pay, to the tune of $1.6 billion last year. Under the plan, the surtax would be repealed and state trust funds would receive $11 billion over six years. Part-timers would be eligible for unemployment compensation if they were laid off, and antiabuse measures would be beefed up.</br></br>But the tax cut and a call to move the program to mandatory status, where it wouldn't compete with other programs for a share of the budget, may draw opposition.</br></br>AT THIS WORKPLACE, a mental disability could be an advantage.