President Obama’s finally signed the much-debated $18 billion jobs bill. What does that really mean for your company?

The Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act is designed to encourage companies to bolster staffs through two tax breaks: savings on payroll taxes and an additional one-year tax credit on new hires. Besides the $18 billion in employment incentives, HIRE also authorizes $20 billion for highway and transit projects.

To qualify for the tax breaks, new employees must be (or have been) hired between Feb. 3, 2010, and Jan. 1, 2011. Each new hire must certify, in writing, that he or she’s been unemployed for 60 days.

The two-tiered tax incentives shake out like this:

• Through the rest of the year, employers don’t have to pay new hires’ 6.2% Social Security payroll tax, and
• Companies are entitled to a credit equal to 6.2% of total salary — up to $1,000 — for each new worker who sticks around for 52 consecutive weeks. The credit can be taken on the company’s 2011 tax return.

HIRE had been passed by the Senate earlier. But then it went back to the House, where it was modified, so the Senate had to vote on the measure again. It finally passed March 17, 68-29, in likely the most bipartisan ballot of the current Congress.

Will it work?

So will companies start hiring? Experts say the hardest-hit organizations, still suffering depressed revenues from the economic slowdown, probably won’t find the tax incentives enough to add substantial numbers of employees. Companies on the cusp of returning to solid profitability might find the tax savings the push they need to dive into the labor pool.

Overall, the administration estimates HIRE will create 250,000 new jobs.

What do you think? Are the incentives enough to make your company take on new workers? Tell us in the Comments section below.

A whopping 71% of employers say they expect higher healthcare costs in general if reform makes it out of Congress, according to a survey by the National Business Group on Health.

Other findings:

• 69% of employers say it’ll boost the cost of their benefits programs, and
• 35% feel it’ll lead to fewer companies providing subsidized coverage.

Employees aren’t happy about it, either

Workers, too, are giving federal healthcare reform the cold shoulder.

According to a second survey by Towers Watson, employees feel reform would:

• result in higher benefit costs (67%)
• reduce available benefits (54%), and
• lower the quality of care (53%).

What’s your stance on federal healthcare reform? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

The deadline for eligibility for the 65% health insurance premium subsidy has now been extended to those who are laid off through March 31. Previously, eligibility only extended to those who lost their jobs through Feb. 28.

Those eligible can still receive the subsidy for 15 months.

Last week, the House passed the one-month extension, but the bill got held up in the Senate until Tuesday. Once it passed the Senate, Obama quickly signed it into law.

The bill also allows thousands of workers whose unemployment benefits expired on Feb. 28 to receive them for another 30 days. The Department of Labor estimated nearly 400,000 could’ve seen their aid cut if Congress didn’t act.

Congress will now consider a much larger bill that would extend the COBRA subsidy and unemployment benefits through the end of the year.

We’ll keep you posted.

The funds were part of the budget it released earlier this month for fiscal year 2011.

Some noteworthy items in the DOL’s proposal:

• Part of the funds allocated for worker protection programs would allow the agency to hire 350 employees – 177 of which would be investigators and other enforcement staff.
• The Wage and Hour Division would receive $244 million in funding (up $20 million) and hire 90 new investigators and enforcement staff.
• The DOL also indicated it’ll crack down on employers that define workers as independent contractors.
• As part of a joint venture with the Department of the Treasury, the DOL budget includes $25 million to target employee misclassification and hire 100 additional enforcement personnel.
• The DOL has plans for a $50 million initiative to promote paid-leave experiments on the state level.

The budget request has ruffled the feathers of one congressman, John Kline (R-MN). He said the DOL’s plans would create an emphasis on punishment rather than compliance.

In addition, he claims the proposed budget will spark efforts designed to “demonize employers.”

What do you think? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

When Congress passed the so-called Ledbetter Act, employers braced for an onslaught of wage-discrimination claims and big payouts. It hasn’t happened quite that way.

First, let’s do a quick review of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. The Act was written and passed specifically to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

In that case, the Supreme Court held that where an employee challenges a discriminatory pay practice, such as a charge that an employer pays women less than similarly employed men, the period to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission isn’t refreshed with each paycheck. Instead, the claim must be filed within 180 or 300 days of the first paycheck when the alleged discrimination took place. In other words, the clock started running the day the employee’s first “unfair” paycheck was issued.

The Ledbetter Act essentially overturned that decision and said a new period for filing a complaint kicks in with every new paycheck. With that, employers got ready for a tidal wave of complaints. However, according to employment-law attorneys Mark Batten, Steven Hurd and Brian Gershengorn, writing for Law.com, few complaints have met the Ledbetter standard, and employers are successfully defending themselves against most recent complaints, or having the complaints dismissed without a trial.

Here’s why employers are usually on the winning side. Courts are demanding that employees who file “Ledbetter” complaints must show:

• That the employer was using a wage system designed to discriminate. In other words, if there was an inadvertent, rare error in pay classification, that doesn’t meet the standard for a Ledbetter violation.
• That the complaint really falls under wage discrimination. Courts have said that employees can’t just throw any discrimination charge against the wall, call it a Ledbetter complaint, and hope to make it stick. Not all discrimination is pay discrimination.
• Strong evidence that there was a violation. Even with the new law, the bar for proving a complaint remains as high as it ever was.

What’s not on Congress’ agenda yet: The president’s proposal to give tax credits to small businesses that hire new employees. None of the current proposals on Capitol Hill have that component. House Democratic leaders did pass a $100 billion job-creation bill, but the tax credit for hiring wasn’t in there.

What is in the bill and coming from the White House:

• The president will announce plans to provide $5 billion more in tax credits for makers of wind, solar, electric-vehicle and other renewable-energy products. The president’s plan is to get the ball rolling for “green” industries and then attract $15 billion in private investment — and create jobs in the industry.
• The U.S. House’s bill contains money for infrastructure projects, water projects, affordable-housing construction and renovation, and school construction and renovation.

In any case, the Senate won’t consider or vote on the House bill — or a bill to give tax credits for hiring — until some time after the first of the year.

Employers shouldn’t wait around to see what happens with the Employee Free Choice Act. 

Even if Congress makes it easier to form unions, improving benefits communication today will help make sure your staff is satisfied with what you’re offering — and keep organizers at bay.

Here are three things worth giving to employees now to keep them happy and let them know exactly how much they’re getting from their benefits:

Total comp statements

These statements let employees know that you have much more invested in them than salaries.

Despite the effectiveness of this tool, only 43% of employers provide total comp statements, according to the 2009 Metlife Study of Employee Benefit Trends.

Key: Make sure the statements are personalized and clear to all employees. For example, break statements down into short, easy to understand sections (e.g., salary, health care and retirement).

Decision-support tools

Employees love to have tools (like Web-based calculators) to help them make decisions about their benefits.

These tools also boost employee satisfaction with their benefits.

One worth trying: MetLife’s free Employee Benefits Simplifier. It helps employees decide which benefits are right for “them” and even suggests coverage levels.

Off-season education

Outside of enrollment season, meet with employees and explain each part of your benefits package individually. Example: One month hold a meeting that explains your dental plan. The next month meet to discuss the vision benefits you offer.

This info will boost employees’ satisfaction and confidence in their enrollment decisions and increase participation when enrollment rolls around.

What are some things you do to educate employees about their benefits? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

A three-year extension for E-Verify was included in the $42.8 billion appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) signed recently by president Obama.

E-Verify was set to expire but will now run until at least September 2012. Some lawmakers had been pushing for a five- or ten-year extension. The system’s staunchest supporters in Congress are also trying to pass a law making E-Verify mandatory for all employers.

We’ll keep you posted.

The main points –

The cost: $894 billion.

The selling point: It would reduce future deficits by $30 million over  a period of 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Who’ll gain coverage: According the Pelosi’s figures, about 36 million additional people will get coverage by (a) qualifying for an expanded Medicaid program and (b)  for some moderate-income Americans, receiving subsidies to buy insurance either from private carriers or a new government-run plan.

Pelosi’s bill has many similarities with the Senate version, but has at least one key difference — mainly in how the bill would be funded:

The House bill, for instance, would impose a new income surtax on individuals earning more than $500,000 and couples earning more than $1 million. The House bill contains no provision for taxing high-cost health plans — so called “Cadillac plans” — which is a main source of funding for the Senate bill.

Both the House and Senate version of the legislation contain tough restrictions against insurance companies’ denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions.

Good news: The feds are eliminating paperwork associated with one common fringe benefit — company-provided cell phones.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruffled employers’ feathers this summer when it decided to unearth a seldom-used, 20-year-old law requiring companies to tax employee’s cell phones.

Many employers paid little attention to the old rules — which said personal calls on employer-provided cell phones were taxable — until the IRS announced it would simplify the rules for how these phones would be taxed.

No matter what the new rules would be, Benefits pros were almost certainly looking at added paperwork.

Imagine constantly having to determine which calls employees make — say to a friend in the office, for example — are personal (and taxable) and which aren’t.

It’d be a huge headache.

Well now employers don’t have to worry about it.

After reviewing the proposed new rules, the IRS backed off its stance and has decided to halt taxation on personal calls altogether.

IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman recently issued this statement: “Although some of the proposed changes would add clarity, the current law will inevitably leave widespread confusion among employees and businesses. Therefore, Secretary Geithner and I ask that Congress act to make clear that there will be no tax consequence to employers or employees for personal use of work-related devices such as cell phones provided by employers. The passage of time, advances in technology, and the nature of communication in the modern workplace have rendered this law obsolete.”