MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A new bill pre-filed this week in the Alabama Legislature would impose stricter job search requirements for those receiving unemployment benefits, something the bill’s sponsor hopes will improve labor participation in the state.
“In terms of accomplishments, we hope that it would encourage people to be much more serious about seeking jobs when they’re on unemployment,” Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville, told Alabama Daily News Thursday.
Under the bill, the number of employers Alabamians must contact each week to remain eligible for unemployment benefits would increase from three to five. In 2022, state lawmakers increased that number from one to three after adopting a bill carried by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur.
Oliver’s bill would also introduce new eligibility provisions that would require recipients to respond to a job offer within 72 hours to continue receiving benefits, as well as disqualify Alabamians who miss scheduled job interviews.
“The complaint that we get is that people get offered jobs and just don’t take them,” Oliver said.
Alabama lawmakers, as well as Gov. Kay Ivey, supported a number of bills this past session aimed at improving the state’s low labor participation rate, which currently sits at 57.5% compared to the national rate of about 62%.
Oliver’s new bill, he said, was just one more tool to help improve the state’s labor participation, and had materialized as a result of discussions with leaders in the business community during the closing days of the past legislative session earlier this year.
Also the chair of the newly formed Diabetes Task Force, Oliver said obesity is a possible contributor to the state’s low labor participation rate.
“That’s really how I got involved in this, it’s because of the number of people in our workforce that don’t participate, and then you look at the number of those that don’t participate because they’re obese,” he said.
“I believe somewhere around 40% of our people in our workforce who don’t participate, don’t do so because of obesity. That is the issue, people get to a condition where they lose their motivation to work, and literally the ability.”
Oliver’s assertion of poor health being a common barrier to employment was supported by the Labor Shortage Commission’s findings last year during several hearings in which they found that the second-most frequent reason for being unemployed cited by Alabamians was poor health.
More than 38% of Alabama residents are considered clinically obese, the seventh-highest rate in the nation.
While the bill will likely garner strong support from Alabama’s business community, some were less than ecstatic about the proposal, such as Dev Wakeley, worker policy advocate with Alabama Arise, a nonprofit organization that advocates on behalf of impoverished Alabamians.
“What we hear all the time is we need better workforce participation, and this is an attempt to hurt people until they’re desperate enough to take anything, no matter how unsuitable the work is, by taking away their ability to even survive unless they do so,” Wakeley told ADN.
Alabama currently provides up to 14 weeks of unemployment benefits for new enrollees, whereas most states offer up to 26. The state also pays among the top-ten lowest in weekly unemployment assistance, a maximum of $255 a week.
Wakeley was also critical of the increase in the number of job contacts Alabamians must make per week to remain eligible for unemployment assistance, arguing that the increase was particularly harmful to those in the state’s more rural communities.
“The idea of having to conduct five employment searches a week at qualifying employers within your geographical area is, frankly, totally unrealistic,” he said. “Where they moved to three (per week it) was unrealistic; this is just pie-in-the-sky unreasonable and totally untethered from reality.”
Oliver, when asked about the bill’s potential impact on Alabama’s more rural residents, said he was open to making amendments to his bill as it makes its way through the legislative process next year. The legislative session starts in February.
“I see that as an issue and that’s something we may have to address; I live in a rural area myself, so the availability of jobs locally may not be very great,” Oliver said.
“I’m always reasonable and willing to listen to any better idea, I don’t think I get everything right the first time. That’s why I introduced the bill early, and if there’s something we need to come back and amend, we’ll do that.”