Senator’s Orrin Hatch (R) and Chuck Schumer (D) are proposing a tax break for companies that hire an unemployed worker. In a nutshell, if a company hires an employee that has been unemployed for more than 60 days, they will not have to pay the Social Security insurance on the worker for the remainder of 2010. More here.
I think this is a good idea. But, frankly, just a good start. How about devising a bill that if a business hires a worker who has been collecting unemployment for longer than 6 months, businesses get a full tax-credit for 6 months equivalent to something like their previous unemployment benefit. The business could not have done layoffs in the past 6 months (to prevent firing people and hiring new workers who have been unemployed to get the tax credit), and in order to keep the credit the worker would have to keep the job for at least 6-months post credit (to prevent using the benefit and then layoffs). This puts people back to work creating value for businesses and, expands our economies productive capacity while also giving people an opportunity to get back to work and prove themselves with a new company. Workers are just looking for a chance. This might just give it to them. Since I don’t have the luxury of a budget office, I pulled my numbers out of the air. You could do the projections to even try and get this to be budget neutral since the revenue from employee taxes might neutralize some of the employer tax benefit that spurred the hiring. Thoughts?