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According to the California Chamber of Commerce, four bills
pending in the Legislature last month would cost California employers
and employees at least $6 billion in higher taxes for unemployment
and disability insurance programs.
The chamber's Julianne Broyles researched the measures, all
sponsored by the AFL-CIO, and added up the bills' potential impacts
and called them "the most expensive tax hikes in the history"
of the two programs. The chamber and Cal-Tax oppose the measures,
which are:
- SB 164 (Solis) requires payment of state disability insurance
(SDI) benefits for family care and medical leave. According to
the state Employment Development Department, there would be $375
million in higher SDI program costs per year.
- SB 202 (Solis) is organized labor's unemployment insurance
(UI) "wish list," said Ms. Broyles. It would require
about $2.4 billion in new employer tax dollars to increase the
floor of wages subject to UI taxes from $7,000 to $20,000. It
also would provide an additional $25 per dependent in each benefit
check, up to $100 a week, raise the maximum weekly benefit from
$230 to $300 and lower the quarterly base wage needed to qualify
for UI from $900 to $300.
- SB 233 (Solis) expands the ability of employees to quit for
cause and be eligible to collect UI benefits.
- SB 495 (Rosenthal) increases taxes for 2.9 million employees,
raising the SDI maximum weekly benefit to $490 from the current
$336. It would increase employee- and employer-paid SDI taxes
by $328 million over four years.
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This
article is from Cal-Tax Digest, published
