State Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), shown here at a September 2025 press conference, said on the Assembly floor Tuesday that the UI bill would "take away benefits from the people who need them the most." (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

On a party-line vote, a bill changing Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance laws, which Gov. Tony Evers’ office said he will veto, passed the Assembly  Tuesday.

The bill would allow people collecting federal disability payments to remain eligible for unemployment insurance if they lose a job. But it would cut their jobless pay by half the value of their disability pay.

The bill was sent to the Legislature from the joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council, which negotiates on a proposed “agreed-upon bill” every two years.

Historically the council’s bills have enjoyed broad support and easy passage, but the current measure, AB 652, includes changes that prompted opposition from Democrats. Evers’ spokesperson told the Wisconsin Examiner on Jan. 7 that the governor will veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

The bill is the first jobless pay measure in more than a decade to raise the maximum benefit, increasing it by $25 a week to $395. Critics argue that is inadequate.

The critics also object to reducing jobless pay for people who receive Social Security Disability Income, and to the measure’s proposed new strictures on the unemployment insurance system that Evers has previously vetoed.

A federal judge in July 2025 ordered the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to stop enforcing a ban on unemployment compensation for SSDI recipients that was enacted in 2013. The judge ruled a year earlier that the ban violated federal laws protecting people with disabilities.

Before voting on the advisory council’s unemployment insurance bill Tuesday, Assembly Republicans voted 53-44 to block Democrats from passing a substitute amendment removing provisions they opposed and increasing the value of jobless pay. They went on to pass the unamended bill by the same 53-44 margin.

The Democratic amendment would have repealed the state’s ban on unemployment compensation for SSDI recipients, but without the financial penalty. The amendment also included a $127 increase in the maximum benefit through Jan. 2, 2027, followed by annual increases in line with the consumer price index. In addition, it increased the cap on how much income a laid-off person could make in a week while continuing to qualify for jobless pay.

“Wisconsinites deserve adequate unemployment benefits. This amendment is a step towards being able to do just that,” said Rep. Maureen McCarville (D-DeForest).

At a state Senate hearing Jan. 7, Scott Manley, a lobbyist for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and chair of the advisory council’s management caucus, defended the council bill’s jobless pay penalty for SSDI recipients, arguing that it would treat disability pay like other sources of income people get while they collect unemployment insurance.

“If you have additional income … that income is going to offset your unemployment benefits,” Manley said. “Unemployment is supposed to provide a temporary safety net of additional income for people who lose their job through no fault of their own.”

On the Assembly floor Tuesday, Rep. Chris Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) — who in the past has supported advisory council bills but came out against the council’s legislation in this session — reiterated her opposition. She said a constituent on the autism spectrum qualifies for SSDI and works part-time at a local library, allowing her to live independently.

“Without that part-time job, she could not afford to be independent,” Sinicki said. “I sure as heck do not want to be one to vote to take away benefits from the people who need them the most.”

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Job centers help people who are looking for work, including people who must conduct work searches each week to receive unemployment benefits. A bill to change the unemployment insurance rules has divided lawmakers despite being offered by the joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

This report has been updated

A bill that would boost Wisconsin’s top weekly jobless pay while penalizing people who receive federal disability pay is heading to the Assembly floor — so far with only GOP support. 

On Wednesday, Gov. Tony Evers’ communications director said the governor will veto the measure if it reaches his desk.

The legislation, AB 652, would also impose several previously vetoed changes to the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) law. It passed the Assembly’s labor committee Tuesday on a 6-3 vote, with all committee Democrats voting no.

The bill came from the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council. With equal participation of labor and management, the council negotiates changes to the state’s unemployment insurance law every two years.

The council historically has been credited with giving neither side a lopsided advantage in revisions to the unemployment insurance system. The bill that the body offered for the current legislative session, however, has become problematic for some of the council’s staunchest advocates.

“I simply cannot vote for this particular bill as written,” said Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) at Tuesday’s vote by the Assembly Committee on Workforce Development, Labor and Integrated Employment.

The measure would increase the maximum jobless pay for the first time in 12 years — to $395 a week from $370.

It would also formally repeal a 12-year-old ban on unemployment benefits for people who receive federal Social Security Disability Income. At the same time, however, it would cut an SSDI recipient’s jobless payments by the equivalent of half their weekly disability income.

A federal judge ruled in July 2024 that Wisconsin’s ban violated federal laws protecting people with disabilities.

In 2025 the judge ordered the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to stop denying jobless pay for SSDI recipients. The department was also ordered to review the cases going back to 2015 of people denied unemployment insurance due to the ban and make payments to those who were otherwise eligible.

Sinicki has long championed the role of the UI advisory council in revising the state’s UI laws, criticizing changes Republicans have proposed that didn’t go through the joint labor-management body.

Despite that, she’s been an outspoken critic of the UI advisory council’s current bill since it was introduced in November, and reiterated her opposition Tuesday because of the SSDI penalty.

Sinicki described an autistic constituent who works “a few hours a day” at a library. “She counts on that money. If she loses that job, she’s out that money,” Sinicki said. “We’re talking about a very small amount of money. It’s not saving the state millions and millions of dollars” to claw it back.

She predicted the bill would run afoul of the court order blocking the SSDI ban.

Sinicki also criticized “the paltry $25 increase” in the maximum weekly benefit.

“When you look around at the states around us, most of them are paying out twice as much as we do here,” she said. “And I just think it’s a slap in the face.”

State Rep. Paul Melotik (R-Grafton), the committee chair, defended the legislation.

“This is increasing what people are getting when they claim [unemployment],” Melotik said. “And it also is legal based on what the agreed-upon deal has been.”

In addition to its SSDI penalty, AB 652 would write into the state’s UI law changes that were in previous bills Evers has vetoed — two of them in the current legislative session.

Those provisions would penalize unemployment insurance recipients accused of “ghosting” job interviews or failing to show up for an offered job; increase the scrutiny of recipients’ work searches; impose new requirements for applicants to prove their identities; and require DWD to follow specific steps, including checking databases that track death records, employment records, citizenship and immigration records, to confirm the identity of a UI applicant.

In vetoing previous UI-related bills, Evers has cited in part the failure to put them through the advisory council process. Asked via email Tuesday whether Evers would veto the bill if it passes both houses, Evers’ communications director, Britt Cudaback, replied Wednesday morning: “Yes.”

DWD “has a number of concerns with the UIAC agreed upon bill package,” according to written testimony the department filed with the committee at a November public hearing on the bill.

Rachel Harvey, DWD’s legislative director, wrote that the bill’s $25 increase in the top weekly benefit from the maximum set in 2013 amounts to less than 7%. The increase “remains far below the maximum weekly benefit rate in neighboring states,” she wrote.

Harvey wrote that the testimony was provided “for information only,” but showed no enthusiasm for the legislation.

“The bill package includes reductions of Ul benefits for recipients of SSDI, multiple provisions previously vetoed by Gov. Evers, costly work search audit requirements, redundant measures already in effect at DWD to ensure program integrity, and new barriers for individuals receiving benefits,” she wrote

It makes those changes, she added, “all while failing to provide adequate resources for the department to implement these provisions in their entirety.”

This report has been updated at 1/7/2026, 9:38 a.m.

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