This week, NJBIA sent a letter to Gov. Phil Murphy requesting the use of New Jersey’s unspent federal CARES Act funding to replenish the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund – as other states have done.
“Given the low balance in the UI Fund, some sort of tax increase is inevitable,” NJBIA President and CEO Michele Siekerka wrote to the governor. “But the magnitude of a $1 billion tax on jobs for our state’s employers while they are still suffering will undermine any economic recovery that occurred in 2020 and any we hope to see in 2021.
“Allocating the CARES monies to the UI Trust Fund would be a win-win: a simple means to avert economic strain that could reverberate from the employers who face increased UI taxes down to the employees who could be laid off, or the prospective employees not hired.”
Currently on Murphy’s desk is bill A-4853/S-3011, supported by NJBIA, that would soften and phase–in a $1 billion increase in payroll taxes – rather that hit employers with the increase all at once in July – as a result of the low balance in the UI Trust Fund.
To see the full letter, click here.
