West Virginia Public Broadcasting – The Senate passed a bill that would reduce overall unemployment benefits but increase initial benefits.
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Senate Bills 840 and 841 would have steeply cut unemployment benefits. Those bills were combined and amended to substantially reduce the change to the state’s unemployment benefits.
The engrossed bill that passed the Senate shaves two weeks of the current 26 weeks of unemployment benefits available to workers who have lost their job due through no fault of their own. It increases the initial benefit to up to $712 per week, or 70 percent of the original wage, for the first four weeks of unemployment. That’s up from $624 per week, and 65 percent of the wage. However after those first four weeks, the benefit decreases by 5 percent of the original wage, or max benefit.
