Unemployment Law

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In a concurrence to one of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s blockbuster opinions from the 2024-25 term, SEIU Healthcare Wis. v. WERC, 2025 WI 29, 416 Wis. 2d 688, 22 N.W.2d 876 (Dallet, J., concurring), Justice Dallet called on the Court to reevaluate Wisconsin’s current—and oft-cited—approach to statutory interpretation as set forth in State ex rel. Kalal v. Cir. Ct. Dane Cnty., 2004 WI 58, 271 Wis. 2d 633, 681 N.W.2d 110.

Kalal created a textualist, two-step methodology for interpreting…
Continue Reading The End of the Textualist Era? Wisconsin Supreme Court Presented with Opportunity to Overturn Kalal

The legislature has sent three unemployment bills to the governor.

As I wrote previously in a letter to the legislature, AB168 and AB169 deserve an immediate veto. Indeed, Gov. Evers previously vetoed versions of these bills during the last legislative session.

AB146, on the other hand, addresses a real problem in Wisconsin: ongoing and worsening delays in mail delivery. As I already noted to the legislature, however, formally extending the deadline for responding to…
Continue Reading Legislative unemployment bills going to the governor

If you left your job or were let go due to a medical condition some time ago but never filed for short- or long-term disability benefits (S/LTD), the good news is that it might not be too late.

We regularly hear from people who assumed they missed their chance to file for disability insurance benefits that they had through their last employer. Maybe you thought you’d recover. Maybe you didn’t know you had S/LTD coverage. Maybe you’re only now…
Continue Reading You Stopped Working Months (or Years) Ago — Can You Still File for Short- and Long-Term Disability?

The Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council has been meeting for most of 2025 over Department proposals and then proposals from the labor and management representatives.

After the Sept. 18th meeting ended, council members apparently reached agreement, because on the morning of Sept. 24th LRB drafts of agreed-on bills were ready for review by council members.
Note: The minutes of the Sept. 18th meeting show that council members went to caucus and did not return from that caucus to announce…
Continue Reading Advisory Council agreed-on bill does little to nothing for workers or anyone else

Application for benefits
Unemployment benefits application

On July 17, 2024, the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin ruled on a case challenging whether it was legal to prevent recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) from also receiving Wisconsin unemployment compensation benefits. The court held that the state law that automatically prevented SSDI recipients from receiving unemployment compensation benefits violated federal law that protects disabled people. As a result, the SSDI eligibility ban has been found to discriminate against disabled…
Continue Reading SSDI eligibility ban in Wisconsin is illegal

The diocese has petitioned for review before the US Supreme Court the Catholic Charities decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Note: All the filed materials with the US Supreme Court are available at the court’s public docket for this case.
In its decision, Catholic Charities v. LIRC, 2024 WI 13, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that non-profit entities affiliated with the diocese (but not actually funded by the diocese) were not exempt from paying unemployment taxes…
Continue Reading Catholic Charities of Wisconsin might be going to the US Supreme Court

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development has scheduled a public hearing on unemployment benefits and taxes for Thursday, November 21st, at 2 to 4 pm and 5 to 6 pm.

This public hearing is online only (via webex) and requires prior registration for both sessions: registration for the 2 to 4 pm session and registration for the 5 to 6 pm session.

Comments can also be submitted in writing via [email message](mailto: UILawChange@dwd.wisconsin.gov) or written letter to:
Janell…
Continue Reading Public hearing on unemployment in 2024

Or, who should be in charge for the sake of middle-class prosperity, Mr. Potter or George Bailey?

Unemployment is a key economic indicator, as the rate is tied to whether companies are hiring or laying off workers. The whole point of unemployment benefits, after all, is economic insurance for businesses so that their customers continue to have money to buy the things they need, like food and housing.
The decreased and irregular purchasing power of wage earners in turn…
Continue Reading Which political party is more likely to lead to economic gains

Last week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued its decision in Catholic Charities v. LIRC, 2024 WI 13. At issue in this case was whether the Catholic Charities entities would be exempt from paying any unemployment taxes (and their employees no longer eligible for unemployment benefits when laid off) because the Catholic Charities entities are, like churches themselves, operated for faith-based reasons.
Note: Articles on the decision have appeared in the Wisconsin Examiner, WisPolitics, and Urban Milwaukee…
Continue Reading Religious Exemptions to Unemployment Taxes in 2024

The month of May is going to be eventful, as either a deal on the debt ceiling will be reached (i.e., raising it) or a massive recession and possible economic calamity will strike. Or, just maybe we will get a combination of both because a giant coin or issuance of fancy debt called premium bonds will not resolve all the worries in the world about the United States no longer paying its debts from previous expenditures.

Layoffs, whether…
Continue Reading Jobs, the Debt Ceiling, and Recession

The US Dep’t of Labor has announced the beginning of an effort to modernize unemployment claim-filing to make the process both more equitable and less susceptible to fraud.

This effort is centered around the creation of “tiger” teams that are “composed of experts across many disciplines including fraud specialists, equity and customer service experience specialists, UI program specialists, behavioral insights specialists, business intelligence analysts, computer systems engineers/architects and project managers.” These teams will not only work on hardening a…
Continue Reading Tiger Teams and Unemployment Reform Coming to Wisconsin

At the August 17th Department of Workforce Development (DWD) Advisory Council meeting, there was action on some of the Department proposals.

After coming out of caucus, council members agreed to support Department proposals D21-01 through D21-08, D21-11 (work share modifications), and D21-15 (eliminating unemployment taxes for summer camps and excluding camp counselors who are not students from covered employment).

Full details on D21-11 and D21-15 are available in this previous post.

The support for D21-01 …
Continue Reading Update on Department of Workforce Development Advisory Council’s August Meeting

MEUC (Mixed Earners Unemployment Compensation) benefits have been over-shadowed by PUA, PEUC, and PUC benefits. But, many self-employed individuals who also engage in regular wage work may be eligible for this benefit that originated with the Continued Assistance Act.

MEUC benefits pay an additional $100 per week from the week ending 1/2/2021 thru the week ending 9/4/2021. You are eligible for MEUC benefits if:

  • you receive regular unemployment benefits or PEUC benefits (receiving PUA benefits would mean that

…
Continue Reading Apply for MEUC benefits before the Sept. 4th deadline

With all the problems being described with unemployment here, there are also many efforts at reforming the unemployment system — especially of late — as the problems access and timely payments have become so obvious even John Oliver of Last Week Tonight can see them.

A major report (over 100 pp.) for Reforming Unemployment Insurance is now available. A press release is also available.

This report describes how unemployment is supposed to work, why national or universal…
Continue Reading Reforming Unemployment

Several folks have forwarded to me different articles that describe the current unemployment situation.

An article in Dissent establishes that the current attack on pandemic unemployment programs is mostly just another kind of attack on working folk.
Across the country, workers have used the health and safety concerns posed by the pandemic and the enhanced unemployment insurance provided by the CARES Act to renegotiate the basic social contract that governs the American workplace. As social-distancing restrictions end and employers…
Continue Reading The Summer 2021 Unemployment Situation

unemployment cartoon

Let’s start with some background on unemployment insurance in Wisconsin. This article focuses on unemployment insurance from an employer’s perspective and specifically under Wisconsin state law. As such, we are not discussing the expanded unemployment provisions in the CARES Act, which primarily impact separated employees applying for unemployment benefits under more broad eligibility criteria. As the CARES Act provisions are federally funded, they have minimal impact on employers. In our experience, employers are not even notified as a party…
Continue Reading Do Business Owners Need to Pay Unemployment Insurance?