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Employees, Employers and the Unemployed Face Changes in 2012

December 30th, 2011 by flanews

Employees, employers and the unemployed will all face changes in 2012. Business owners will pay higher taxes, minimum wage workers will get a raise and jobseekers will claim fewer weeks of unemployment benefits. As Whitney Ray tells us, some of these changes are being fought.

On the first day of the 2010 legislative session business owners defeated a 64 dollar unemployment tax increase. The tax is scheduled to go up a 100 bucks next year from 70 dollars an employee to 170. The Florida Chamber of Commerce is asking lawmakers to intervene.

“Collectively, if nothing is done this legislative session, the combined rate goes up 817 million dollars on employers,” said David Hart, a spokesman with the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

Business owners will also be forced to give pay raises. The minimum wage will jump 36 cents an hour in 2012. Meaning Florida’s lowest paid workers will earn 7.67 an hour. Employers say individually the changes are a headache, but when added to the thousands of new federal regulations they put jobs on the line.

“As small businesses have to pay for these types of thing, it’s going to create more hardship for them and therefore they are going to have to reduce their number of employees,” said Uniform Shop owner Cal Gleaton.

While business owners will struggle to comply with new state and federal laws, employees who lose their job next year will get less help from the government. The number of weeks a Floridian can claim unemployment will drop from 26 to 23.

“Purely from a fiscal standpoint it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Karen Woodall, with the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy.

Opponents of the cuts say the change will take money out of the economy. They’re preparing to stop more cuts to the unemployment program in the 2012 legislative session. The reason unemployment taxes are increasing and benefits are being cut is because the state barrowed 2.7 billion dollars to pay unemployment claims. The changes are being made to pay back the loan from the federal government.

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