Alabama bill would require people to apply for more jobs to receive unemployment • Alabama Reflector

The state’s weekly unemployment benefit, according to the Alabama Department of Labor, is between $45 and $275, depending on the base period earnings.

Wakeley said the bill would be especially problematic for residents living in rural parts of the state, places without many employers for the unemployed to connect with.

“Iif you live in a rural or economically depressed area, and you can’t reapply, and you have to go to five applications a week, you could just be frozen out of the benefits that you should be entitled to,” Wakeley said. “That is the stark reality of it.”

The rules bar people from checking in with the same employer, which forces people to connect with employers who are further away from where they live.

“If you are looking at places like Greene, Sumter, Perry counties, you are, after the first couple of weeks, are already going well outside of reasonable commuting distance just to cover anything,” Wakeley said.

Gov. Kay Ivey has made increasing the state’s labor force participation rate one of her signature priorities for the past couple of years. The state ranks as the fourth-worst state in terms of labor force participation at 57.5%, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve’s website. The worst is Mississippi at 54.2% followed by West Virginia at 55.1%. South Carolina, a state with similar demographics to Alabama, also has a labor force participation rate of 57.5%.

At an October meeting of a state commission formed to examine the issue, agencies, employers and labor advocates said the state’s low rate stemmed from a lack of adequate child care, transportation and training opportunities.

The additional rules detract from the intent of providing unemployment insurance, according to experts like Chandra Childers, senior policy and economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.

“At a larger, macro level, it would allow the economy to work better, especially during periods of recession, because now people have money that they are spending,” she said. “The flip side of that is if you make it harder to access, restrict duration, or restrict benefits, then what it does is it makes workers more desperate. It is an effort, essentially, to force workers to take any job, so therefore, they are not able to bid up the quality of jobs.”

Oliver said he understands the concerns related to restricting benefits, particularly for rural areas, but said the bill is in the preliminary stages and will continue to undergo changes as it works through the Legislature.

“That is something we are looking at right now,” he said regarding the burden the bill places on rural residents. “That  might be an undue burden, but we are going to take a look and see how that works.”