Posted inBusiness, Economy, News

Colorado’s $1 billion unemployment loan on track to be paid off by November, preventing higher tax on employers

Colorado has paid back 87% of the $1 billion it borrowed from the federal government to provide out-of-work Coloradans unemployment benefits during the pandemic. As of this week, the outstanding balance was $133.1 million. There’s still a way to go to get the depleted unemployment insurance trust fund healthy again. But with Colorado’s strong job […]

Posted inBusiness, Economy, News, Politics and Government

Colorado lawmakers plan to overhaul unemployment system, extend benefits to immigrants as they also backfill depleted fund

Colorado lawmakers are planning to introduce a bill as soon as this week that would overhaul the state’s unemployment system and also send roughly $600 million to the depleted unemployment insurance trust fund to lower a $1 billion federal debt hanging over employers.  The $600 million replenishment was expected — Gov. Jared Polis made the […]

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What’s Working: Colorado gets closer to pre-pandemic economy as jobless rate falls to 3.7%

Colorado’s unemployment rate is back down to 3.7%, which is where the state was halfway between the Great Recession and the first cases of COVID-19. This implies that people are going back to traditional jobs, perhaps lured by higher wages or employers’ increasing flexibility to allow work-from-home options. But, keep in mind, these numbers don’t […]

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Colorado needs to refill its now empty unemployment fund. Here’s how that will impact employers, workers. 

When the notice about higher unemployment insurance premiums arrived this month from the Colorado labor department, business owner Jim Noon said he was shocked.  “The surcharges all said zero,” said Noon, who owns Centennial Container in Denver. He remembered how employers’ premiums  doubled and even tripled more than a decade ago as the state recovered […]

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What’s Working: Colorado paid $30 million in bogus unemployment claims. It could have been worse.

It probably came as a shocker when Californians learned that their state had paid out $20 billion in fraudulent unemployment claims as of October since the COVID-19 pandemic began. That’s about the same amount the Golden State has borrowed from the U.S. government to provide benefits when its own unemployment fund ran out of money […]

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What’s Working: A third-quarter check on Colorado’s economy and more on worker deaths and COVID

Twenty months into a pandemic that changed how people work — or think about what they want out of a job — the stats around Colorado’s economy appear mixed-to-dismal if you don’t have some perspective. But more on that below. This wasn’t meant to be a sequel to last week’s column on worker deaths related […]

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What’s Working: How much federal COVID relief went to unemployed Coloradans?

The day is finally here and some will weep but others will likely be cheering. It’s the last day Colorado will pay pandemic unemployment benefits, if you’re reading this on Sept. 4. According to Department of Labor and Employment officials, about 107,000 Coloradans will no longer be eligible while another 30,000 people will no longer […]