The state’s Workforce Development agency is changing the rate of unemployment taxes employers will have to pay. Spokesperson Kerry Koonce says it’s part of their annual adjustment.
She says they look at the unemployment benefits trust fund every year and project the amount of unemployment that will be paid out, and then set the benefits for the following year. The benefits are set based on eight tables, and Koonce says this year there is a positive change.
Koonce says it’s moving from tax table three to tax table four, so the average rate paid by employers into the fund will go from 2.8% to 2.4%. Koonce says there are a couple of things that prompted the improvement.
Koonce says more money is being brought into the trust fund as more people are going back to work and more is paid in, and there are less new unemployment claims, so there are fewer benefits being paid out. Koonce says the is one step back toward better economic times.
She says we held at table six from 2003 until 2009 and then with the recession we dropped to table three.Koonce says the change is estimated to save businesses $96-million in taxes.