BLOCK BILL TO HELP UNEMPLOYED GET JOB TRAINING GOES TO GOVERNOR’S DESK

East County News Service

August 27, 2010 (Sacramento) – Assemblymember Marty Block (D- Lemon Grove) announced that his AB 2058 has been approved by the Legislature and will now go to the Governor for signature. If signed, the measure would help thousands of unemployed Californians upgrade their job skills and let unemployed individuals receive unemployment insurance (UI) benefits while enrolled in an approved training program on a full-time basis.

San Diego County’s State Senate and Assembly members split down party lines, with Republicans all voting against the measure and Democrats voting in favor. View the votes. Conservatives oppose expending funds for the unemployment training, while others contend that investing in getting unemployed people trained will help them get jobs, helping to refuel the economy.

“The best way to address our state’s skyrocketing unemployment rate is to provide out-of-work Californians with the opportunity to enroll in training programs that boost their skills and help them reenter the workforce,” Block said. “Last year, two of my constituents enrolled in training programs to increase their employability, only to discover they had lost their unemployment benefits due to a delay in our antiquated system. This forced them to quit the training to retain the assistance they needed. AB 2058 ends this outrageous penalty that laid-off workers suffer when they try to acquire the skills necessary to get them out of the unemployed line.”

To be eligible to receive UI benefits you must be ready and available for work, but those who are in job training and education programs may continue receiving benefits without actively seeking work. Yet Californians are erroneously being cut off from UI benefits while waiting to be signed up for job training and education classes due to the California Employment Development Department’s (EDD) inability to process applications.

To qualify for retraining, UI recipients must participate in a phone interview by EDD staff to verify eligibility. Because of the increase in those receiving unemployment insurance there is a delay in the scheduling of these interviews, which has resulted in Californians having their benefits suspended for up to eight weeks and/or in people dropping out of training programs because they fear their benefits will be suspended.

To make it easier for unemployed Californians to access unemployment insurance benefits while enrolled in training programs, AB 2058 does the following three things:

• Allows for the automatic approval of training programs funded though the Workforce Investment Act, the Employment Training Panel, CalWORKs and the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act and modernizes that list which has not been updated in years to allow unemployed workers to automatically enroll in programs listed on the Eligible Training Provider List without causing a break in UI benefits. These programs meet state standards and have already been approved by local Workforce Investment Boards;

• Maintains that for training not on the previously approved list, there must be approval from the EDD Director that the program will boost the individual’s skills and lead to employment, and;

• Specifies that laid-off workers may only pursue coursework at academic institutions when the worker is eligible for federally extended UI benefits. That means the federal government pays for 100% of the extended benefits so there will be no additional cost to the state’s Unemployment Insurance Fund.