Revised Violence Against Women Act Could Cost States Billions in Unemployment Benefits
The solvency of state Unemployment Insurance (UI) Trust Funds would be jeopardized by provisions of bills before Congress to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
Though the condition of the trust funds has improved since the Great Recession, many states’ funds continue to experience severe financial pressures. The UI funds of 23 states are below the recommended minimum solvency standard, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s “State Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund Solvency Report 2019.”
Insolvency means these states could not cover all UI benefit claims during a future recession, or even an economic slow-down. (California’s fund is in the worst financial shape.) UI funds in another eight states and the District of Columbia are teetering on the brink of insolvency.
Currently, the provision of the Social Security Act covering UI defines domestic violence as “battered or subjected to extreme cruelty” (Sec. 408(a)(7)(C)(iii)), and classifies it as a Hardship Exception to the normal requirement that an unemployment recipient had to have been laid off involuntarily or voluntarily left their job with good cause.
Altering the definition of domestic violence or weakening the “good cause” provision could upset the delicate balance that prevents state Trust Funds from sinking further into debt.
The Violence Against Women Act, first enacted in 1994, requires Congress to pass reauthorizing legislation every five years. Each time the VAWA has been reauthorized, Congress has expanded the law’s definitions, reach, and spending.
Concerns with the House bill (H.R. 1585) center around two provisions that dramatically expand the definition the of “domestic violence,” and a new entitlement to unemployment compensation.
The definition of domestic violence would include behavior involving the use or attempted use of “verbal, psychological, economic, or technological abuse,” under the House-passed bill. Verbal and psychological abuse are not defined, leaving state agencies or the courts to decide what they mean. But abuse could include things like giving a partner the silent treatment, name-calling, or even garden-variety marital disputes. These all-encompassing definitions would have the effect of turning essentially every American into a victim of domestic violence.
This all-encompassing definition of abuse is even more worrisome because the House bill also includes a section on “Entitlement to Unemployment Compensation” for domestic violence victims. The provision states “no person may be denied compensation under such State law solely on the basis of the individual having a voluntary separation from work if such separation is attributable to such individual being a victim of sexual or other harassment or survivor of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking” (Title VII, Section 703(a)) [emphasis added].
Under H.R. 1585, a person leaving their job for any reason could receive unemployment benefits by simply attesting to having experienced domestic violence. A police report or court order would not be required to document the claim. Thus, any person who believes he or she is a victim of verbal, psychological, economic, or technological abuse could quit their job, and then simply check a box on an application form in order to receive the full gamut of unemployment benefits.
H.R. 1585 was approved by the House of Representatives on April 4, 2019 on a mostly party-line vote. Attention has now shifted to the Senate, where Republicans hold the majority.
Seven months after passage of H.R. 1585, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced her bill (S. 2843), to reauthorize the VAWA. Her proposal, which is partly modeled on the House bill, contains the same expansive definitions of “domestic violence.” Her bill also clarifies that the definition of domestic violence it would preempt state law: “Any law, collective bargaining agreement, or employment benefits program or plan of a State or unit of local government is preempted to the extent that such law, agreement, or program or plan would impair the exercise of any right established under this title or the amendments made by this title.” (Sec. 703(d)(2)).
But instead of the sweeping “voluntary separation from work” language featured in the House bill, her proposed legislation relies on the existing unemployment provisions and exceptions in the Social Security Act (section 303(a)(4)(B), as amended).
One week later, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) introduced her version of the VAWA reauthorization (S. 2920). The Ernst bill also contains the problematic domestic violence language: “verbal, psychological, economic, or technological abuse” (Sec. 2(a)(J)). The Ernst bill, however, does not have the problematic unemployment entitlement provisions found in the House or Feinstein bills. However, two months later, the Ernst bill had only 12 Republican cosponsors. In contrast, all 47 Democratic senators have signed on to the Feinstein bill.
In 2018, total unemployment benefits in the United States amounted to $27.5 billion. The new UI entitlement provisions in the House bill would likely cause benefit payouts to balloon by 10 percent, the Coalition to End Domestic Violence estimates, thereby requiring state UI funds to pay out at least $2.75 billion in additional benefits a year. Passage of the Feinstein bill would also increase UI payments, although by a lesser amount than the House bill.
State officials should be alert to the provisions in the House and Senate bills that will likely increase benefit costs for their trust funds by billions of dollars, but do little to stop domestic violence.
Edward Bartlett is president of the nonprofit Stop Abusive and Violent Environments. The views expressed in this article are the author’s, and do not necessarily represent the position of SAVE.
