Trump Administration Proposal To Pay Child Care Leave With UI Would Increase Employer Taxes and Administrative Burden
Recent discussions on Capitol Hill and with the Trump administration indicate that the outline of the paid child care proposal released during the campaign is being seriously proposed. A recent article in Bloomberg described some recent discussions. Background The Child Care proposal that was posted during the campaign provided for a series of tax credits and exclusions to assist in [...]
US House Passes Resolution to Disallow US DOL Drug Testing Regulations That Limit Agency Testing
The US House of Representatives on February 15, 2017 passed a resolution disallowing US DOL adopted regulations that limited drug testing of UI claimants.>> View H.J. Res 42 Background Attached is House Ways and Means background document on the Congressional Review Act and this issue. The House leadership believes that the Department of Labor did not respect Congressional intent in implementing this [...]
US DOL Releases New Comprehensive Black Lung Regulations
On January 4, 2017, as part of the wave of federal regulations filed late in the administration, the US DOL Office of Workers Compensation Programs released substantive rules for comment with respect to the payment of Black Lung medical benefits. The regulations generally set a new national method of determining approved medical reimbursement amounts. The changes in determination of medical reimbursement [...]
US DOL Releases FUTA Offset Credit Decisions
On November 23, 2016, the US DOL, Employment and Training Administration released its determination with respect to FUTA offset credits in the Federal Register. See https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-11-23/pdf/2016-28238.pdf Sections 3302(c)(2)(A) and 3302(d)(3) of the FUTA provide that employers in a State that has an outstanding balance of advances under Title XII of the Social Security Act at the beginning of January 1 [...]
US DOL Proposed Rule Would Result in Increased Longshore Maximum Benefits
Comments due by October 26 The US Department of Labor on August 26, 2016 filed proposed rules for comment on the definition of minimum and maximum compensation rate annual adjustments. See https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-08-26/pdf/2016-20467.pdf The main issue in contention is that the US DOL Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs is proposing to employ the average weekly wage of the injured individual at [...]
US DOL Report on State Workers’ Compensation Supports New Federal Involvement
The US Department of Labor on October 5th released a report entitled “Does the Workers’ Compensation System Fulfill Its Obligations to Injured Workers?”. The release of the report was accompanied by statements from the Secretary of Labor, the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, and the US DOL Assistant Secretary for OSHA. The report may be accessed athttps://www.dol.gov/asp/WorkersCompensationSystem/WorkersCompensationSystemReport.pdf The report [...]