Susan J. Demas
The Democratic-led Michigan House on Wednesday passed an increase to the maximum eligibility for unemployment benefits from 20 weeks to 26 weeks.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer temporarily reinstated the 26 week maximum through an executive order in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to curb the economic hardship the state faced.
House Bill 5827 would permanently reverse the 2011 change to the Michigan Employment Security Act made under the Republican-led Michigan Legislature and GOP Gov. Rick Snyder that reduced unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks.
That move was opposed by Democrats at the time. Now that Democrats control the Legislature and the governor’s office, the policy is one step closer to being reversed.
The bill would bring back benefits that needed to be available in the first place, bill sponsor state Rep. Karen Whitsett (D-Detroit) told reporters after the 56-54 vote along partisan lines.
State Rep. Karen Whitsett (D-Detroit) | Ken Coleman photo
“When you look at 20 weeks, that’s really not a long time; 26 weeks definitely is something that is necessary to happen,” Whitsett said.
Michigan League for Public Policy President and CEO Monique Stanton praised the legislation as “common-sense” and said it brings Michigan in line with 39 other states that provide up to 26 weeks of benefits.
“We know that people don’t stay on unemployment by choice—at the height of the pandemic when the maximum duration of benefits was temporarily extended to 26 weeks, the average claimant used only 14 of those weeks,” said Stanton, who leads the economic justice think tank. “Michiganders often get back into the workforce as soon as possible—but what’s possible has to do a lot with geography and timing.”
Ahead of the vote, Republican lawmakers expressed their disapproval of increasing the amount of time a person can be on unemployment. Rep. Mike Harris (R-Waterford) offered an amendment, which failed, to tie the unemployment benefits expansion to his bill, HB 5859, which would limit the state’s unemployment agency’s ability to reassign employees out of the investigations division and change other rules without legislative approval.
The state’s unemployment agency came under fire during the COVID-19 pandemic for permitting fraudulent unemployment benefits to be doled out as the agency dealt with an influx of claims. In a news release Wednesday from Harris, he said as employment rates improve, “now is not the time to incentivize people to stay out of work longer.”
“The broken unemployment agency let billions of dollars slip out the door to fraudsters and faulty claims,” Harris said in the release. “The agency needs to get its house in order, and adding more weeks of unemployment benefits will just allow criminals to rake in even more from fraud.”
If the increase to 26 weeks becomes law, it would become effective at the start of 2025.
The change would increase payments dispensed by an unknown amount from the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund, which currently has $2.67 billion, according to the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency.
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