Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville, introduces a bill on unemployment compensation in the Alabama House of Representatives on Feb. 11, 2025 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
An Alabama Senate committee Tuesday approved a bill that would increase the number of job contacts a person needs to make to maintain unemployment benefits.
HB 29, sponsored by Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville, would require people to contact at least five potential employers, up from the current three, to maintain unemployment benefits. The bill provides an exception for people living in counties with less than 20,000 residents, who would still be required to contact at least three potential employers.
“We have 127,000 open jobs across the state, and this presumably would require people to look more for jobs and available employment, rather than just taking three a week,” said Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, who introduced the bill to the committee.
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Unemployment benefits in Alabama currently range from $45 to $275 weekly, depending on the person’s earnings in a defined period. The median household income in Alabama was $1,193 per week, according to U.S. Census Bureau data from 2019 to 2023.
Orr pitched the bill as a solution to the state’s low workforce participation rate, which stood at 57.8% as of December 2024. The national workforce participation rate was 62.5% during the same time.
Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, said that lawmakers know that increasing the workforce participation rate means addressing issues in transportation, child care and housing.
“There are a lot of jobs that are out there, but if I’m paying more for day care than I am paying to get to a job or whatever. So that kind of doesn’t– the math doesn’t work,” Coleman-Madison said.
David Stout, legislative director of Alabama Arise, a nonprofit working on poverty issues, called the legislation a “poorly conceived bill” and said that requirements to access unemployment benefits don’t need to be more stringent.
“The people who are drawing unemployment are already conforming to the tightest guidelines in the country,” Stout said.
Stout, who was the only person from the public to speak on the bill, pointed to the state’s low unemployment level, which stood under 3% in December.
“It’s not going to help people who are looking for work, and you’re going to force more people off those rolls that are presently drawing unemployment,” Stout said.
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