Wisconsin Unemployment

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By: Victor Forberger

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Victor Forberger

Latest from Wisconsin Unemployment

Georgia Maxwell, lame duck appointee to the Commission back in 2018, had that appointment expire in March 2023. She stayed on past that expiration date, however, and so her replacement, Katy Lounsbury, has yet to begin serving on the Commission.

But, Maxwell’s service on the Commission may be ending soon, as she has recently accepted a job as Waukesha county clerk beginning in June of this year.

When Maxwell’s work at the Commission will officially end remains…
Continue Reading Maxwell moving on from LIRC perhaps

I have to include a personal note here. My friend from law school passed away suddenly the week ending November 15th. Like me, he was an “older” student at law school, and we were both one of the few still trying to keep up with all the reading by hanging out at the law library on Friday evenings.

Dave’s claim to fame at law school were his 1L contributions to the weekly “WE” law school student newsletter. He “wrote”…
Continue Reading Rave Rothstein RIP

Closeup of Vote by Mail envelope
Closeup of a Vote by Mail envelope, official balloting material - business reply mail, USPS first class mail.

In August of this year, the US Post Office announced a new rule that included without much fanfare a MAJOR change in when letters are postmarked. Under this new rule, most letters will no longer be postmarked on the day the letter is received by a post office but instead postmarked a day later when the letter is processed at a regional mail processing facility.
It is important that mailers understand the distinction between the date when the Postal…
Continue Reading Postmark changes at the Post Office and late mail

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

Information about the class representatives and how to obtain unemployment benefits that are due disabled workers because of Wisconsin’s illegal SSDI eligibility ban is now available.

Besides this guidance, make sure to review the Department’s well done information about how to obtain the unemployment benefits that are due you.

Recent press coverage of the case is available.

…
Continue Reading Class representatives for the Wisconsin SSDI eligibility ban case

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

Registration with the job center of Wisconsin website must be done once at the start of every benefit year. Usually, with each new benefit year of yours you will get a notice that looks like this or this. On the claim-filing portal, you see a notice similar to the following:

Job registration notice on the claim-filing portal

Note: You can compare the Department’s 2013 FAQ with the current FAQ.

Once logged on to the jobcenterofwisconsin.com website with your user-id and password (separate from your…
Continue Reading Wisconsin job center registration

The SSDI eligibility ban in Wisconsin is no more. On July 14th, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction to the Department to stop enforcing the SSDI eligibility ban effective July 20th.
Note: The Wisconsin Examiner and Fox6 have stories on this court order.
This order should mean that, as of July 20th, any kind of unemployment claim (initial claim or weekly certification) or any initial determination or appeal tribunal hearing or decision (and any Commission decision over…
Continue Reading SSDI eligibility ban in Wisconsin no longer enforced

At June 19, 2025, meeting of the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council, the labor and management proposals this year were presented to the public.
Labor proposals
The labor proposals this year reflect many of the Department’s own proposals (for good and bad).
Increase the maximum weekly benefit rate for unemployment benefits to $497 per week in 2026 and then have the rate indexed for subsequent years.
This proposal mirrors Department proposal D25-04.
Eliminating the one-week waiting period.
This proposal…
Continue Reading Labor and Management Unemployment Proposals in 2025

On May 19th of 2025, the legislature introduced a bill that gives drivers for Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and similar app-based companies the possibility of self-funded health insurance (in portable benefit accounts that could possibility also receive contributions from the companies if a company, for some reason, decides to help pay for such health insurance coverage) in return for losing their status as employees under current Wisconsin law.

The legislature rushed the hearings and passage of this bill and sent…
Continue Reading Network drivers pretense

On June 5th, the US Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion that reversed the Wisconsin Supreme Court to find that the state court had violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment by explicitly imposing “a denominational preference by differentiating between religions based on theological lines.” By distinguishing between religious bodies that engage in proselytizing with their charitable activities and the Catholic Church that does not engage in proselytizing with its charitable activities, an illegal distinction had been made…
Continue Reading Catholic Charities: Religious exemption found

At the 20 March 2025 meeting of the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council, the Department introduced another round of extensive, substantive proposed changes to unemployment law.

Note: Despite many of these proposals being repeats from prior proposals, the Department did not include any financial estimates with these current proposals. At the April 17th Council meeting, however, the Department included fiscal estimates. Accordingly, the links to the proposals are to the April 2025 versions and not the March 2025 versions that…
Continue Reading Department Proposals in 2025

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 US Supreme Court granted the petition for review in Catholic Charities, and oral argument is scheduled for March 31st at 10am eastern time. You can listen to the oral argument at this link.

The issue being addressed by the justices in this case is:
Does a state violate the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses by denying a religious organization an otherwise-available tax exemption because the organization does not meet the state’s criteria for religious behavior?
Framed in…
Continue Reading Catholic Charities of Wisconsin at the US Supreme Court

Given the mass layoffs of late happening with federal employees, some information for how federal employees can claim unemployment benefits is probably needed.

In general, the administration and eligibility calculations/determinations of unemployment benefits is handled at the state level. The benefits themselves, however, come from the federal government. Because the administration varies from state to state, the claim-filing process and benefits vary according to the state handling that unemployment claim. So, a federal employee filing in Minnesota rather…
Continue Reading Unemployment Claims for Federal Employees

For more than a decade, an increasing number of workers are finding that they have “agreed” to have all of their workplace disputes handled through arbitration proceedings.
Note: This “agreement” is often little more than a clause in small print in pages of paperwork that you sign with no discussion or even chance to review.
The problem is that this forced arbitration of a dispute is a one-time, private resolution. While the arbitrator is, in theory, a neutral decision-maker,…
Continue Reading Forced arbitration for workers