A bill to amend subtitle A of title II of division A of the CARES Act to require confirmation of employment status for long-term unemployed individuals, and for other purposes.

II 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. 1712 To amend subtitle A of title II of division A of the CARES Act to require confirmation of employment status for long-term unemployed individuals, and for other purposes. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES MAY 19, 2021 Mr. BRAUN (for himself, Mr. TILLIS, Mr. SCOTT of Florida, and Mrs. BLACK- BURN) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance A BILL To amend subtitle A of title II of division A of the CARES Act to require confirmation of employment status for long-term unemployed individuals, and for other pur- poses. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. CONFIRMATION REQUIREMENT. 3 Subtitle A of title II of division A of the CARES Act 4 is amended by adding at the end the following: 5 VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:32 Jun 03, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1712.IS S1712 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 2 •S 1712 IS ‘‘SEC. 2119. CONFIRMATION OF EMPLOYMENT STATUS FOR 1 LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED INDIVIDUALS. 2 ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—As a condition of each of the 3 agreements described in sections 2104 and 2107, a State 4 shall— 5 ‘‘(1) notify each long-term unemployed indi- 6 vidual in the State that the State unemployment 7 agency will seek confirmation of the individual’s cur- 8 rent employment status from the individual’s most 9 recent employer (except in cases in which such em- 10 ployer no longer exists); 11 ‘‘(2) request each employer described in para- 12 graph (1) to submit information to the State unem- 13 ployment agency with respect to each such individual 14 describing whether— 15 ‘‘(A) the individual’s position is not avail- 16 able at the time of the request; or 17 ‘‘(B) the individual’s position is available 18 but the individual has refused to return to 19 work; 20 ‘‘(3) in any case in which an employer submits 21 information to the State unemployment agency with 22 respect to an individual that describes a position 23 that remains unavailable as described in paragraph 24 (1), notify such individual, not later than the stand- 25 ard processing time for applications for regular un- 26 VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:32 Jun 03, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1712.IS S1712 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS 3 •S 1712 IS employment compensation in the State after receipt 1 of such information, that the individual’s unem- 2 ployed status has been confirmed; and 3 ‘‘(4) in any case in which an employer submits 4 information to the State unemployment agency with 5 respect to an individual that describes a refusal to 6 return to work as described in paragraph (2)(B), or 7 in any case in which an employer fails to submit in- 8 formation described in paragraph (2) not later than 9 the standard processing time for applications for 10 regular unemployment compensation in the State 11 after the date of the request, terminate the individ- 12 ual’s Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensa- 13 tion under section 2104 or Pandemic Emergency 14 Unemployment Compensation under section 2107, 15 as applicable. 16 ‘‘(b) DEFINITION.—In this section, the term ‘long- 17 term unemployed individual’ means an individual who has 18 received Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation 19 under section 2104 or Pandemic Emergency Unemploy- 20 ment Compensation under section 2107 for more than 30 21 weeks of unemployment.’’. 22 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 03:32 Jun 03, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\S1712.IS S1712 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS