All Roll Calls
Yes: 104 • No: 0
IdahoH 00542025 regular legislative sessionHouseWALLET
LABOR – Amends and adds to existing law to revise provisions regarding employment security laws and to provide for certain administrative rules to be null, void, and of no force and effect.
Sponsored By: COMMERCE AND HUMAN RESOURCES COMMITTEE
Signed by Governor
LABOR
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Bill Overview
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37 provisions identified: 8 benefits, 9 costs, 20 mixed.
Employers face steep unemployment fraud penalties
The law penalizes knowing false statements, concealed material facts, and false or backdated documents intended for submission as genuine. It also penalizes violations or attempted violations of contribution or experience-rate assignment rules, and knowingly advising others to violate them. A covered employer's civil penalty equals 10% of taxable wages from the four completed consecutive quarters before the violation. Others face fines up to $5,000 per violation. The listed conduct is also punishable as a felony.
Job refusals can stop unemployment checks
Claimants lose eligibility for causing a suitable job offer to be withdrawn or failing to answer a layoff callback. Without good cause, failing lawful job requirements, reporting directions, job-application instructions, or an accepted job's start also bars benefits. Personal reasons for refusing suitable work must be compelling enough that a reasonable person would act the same way. Examples include religious beliefs, serious moral objections, strong prospects for better work, citizenship or residency restrictions, and unreasonable travel. A signed employer letter or verifiable claimant statement showing work in the usual occupation within four weeks can help establish whether offered work is suitable.
Job seekers face weekly search rules
Beginning July 1, 2025, claimants generally need five weekly job-search actions for unemployment benefits or waiting-period credit. They must follow their assigned search category, obtain required licenses, and accept lower starting pay without better local prospects. Seasonal workers must seek off-season work; attached workers must maintain employer contact and expect to return within 16 weeks. Each verified full-time week with that employer adds one week; approved training also has its own category. Exceptions cover qualifying post-filing illness or disability lasting up to four weeks, or compelling personal circumstances affecting only a minor part of the workweek; claimants cannot refuse or miss suitable work paying over half their weekly benefit.
Approved training protects unemployed workers' benefits
Otherwise eligible workers who lack job-market skills can keep unemployment benefits during training approved by the labor director. The training must improve job prospects and generally be completable within two years. The director can waive that time limit by rule. Participants can keep benefits despite being unable to meet specified availability and job-search requirements.
Disability rules protect workers' benefit access
Workers with a qualifying disability count as available when able to do some work, with or without reasonable accommodation. They must be willing to work their maximum possible hours and meet other eligibility rules, including illness rules. Benefits normally use the first four of the last five completed quarters, then the last four if wages are insufficient. After medically verified temporary total disability, workers with insufficient wages in both periods can use the first four of the last five quarters before the disability week. They must file within three years after disability begins and no later than six months after it ends.
Shared employer arrangements expand worker coverage
Workers in a professional employer organization arrangement can gain unemployment coverage through combined employment. When a client falls short alone, the law combines its employment with the organization's or other clients' employment. Coverage applies when the combined employment meets the required test. This expands potential coverage, not the amount of an individual benefit.
Extended benefits require work to restart
After a disqualifying failure to seek, apply for, or accept suitable work, extended benefits require new employment to restart. Claimants must work at least four weeks after the failure in a job with an employee-employer relationship. They must also earn at least four times their average weekly benefit amount. Other kinds of work do not satisfy this requirement.
Part-time wages limit valid unemployment claims
A valid claim must cover a week with no work, qualifying less-than-full-time work, or separation from employment. For the less-than-full-time category, wages payable must be below 1.5 times the weekly benefit amount. Wages at or above that level do not meet that category's test. A valid claim still must meet separate requirements for payment.
Side businesses must not block work
Claimants doing incidental self-employment must show that it does not interfere with availability for suitable work. They must keep seeking suitable work. This provision does not make claimants eligible when self-employment is their main occupation.
Sports workers face off-season benefit limits
Sports workers face between-season benefit restrictions when they worked the first season and have reasonable assurance of next-season work. Sports wages also cannot establish a claim when they make up at least 90% of base-period wages and that assurance exists. Assurance can come from a written or oral contract, employer interest after an offer to work, or stated intent to return. A professional athlete's intent to seek next-season work can also count.
Corporate officers face special benefit limits
Corporate officers' services are covered unless expressly exempted; an LLC follows its federal tax status, including corporate-officer treatment for members when taxed as a corporation. For claims based on a corporation owned by the officer or family, an officer generally is not unemployed during the term, even without pay. An exception covers indefinite unemployment beyond their control lasting through the benefit year's end, including qualifying removal, dissolution, or sale to an unrelated buyer. Returning to that corporation during the benefit year creates a rebuttable presumption that the unemployment was within their control. If that finding stands, benefits paid during the year must be repaid.
Fired workers get revised misconduct tests
For unemployment claims, misconduct includes falling below reasonable workplace standards that were communicated or naturally follow from the job. The conduct need not be intentional, and the worker's state of mind does not matter. Inefficiency, isolated ordinary negligence, good-faith errors, and inability are excluded; personal conduct outside work is generally excluded, subject to a stated legal exception. Claimants must establish eligibility, but employers must prove that a discharge was for workplace misconduct.
Illness timing affects workers' unemployment benefits
Workers who leave the labor market because of illness or injury before filing cannot qualify until able and available. Illness or disability beginning after application does not itself bar benefits when no work suitable before the illness was offered. Claimants using this protection must remain available for department job referrals. They can leave the area for treatment.
Labor disputes can block weekly benefits
Any unemployment caused by a labor dispute can bar benefits for the entire week. Picketing or voluntarily refusing to cross a peaceful picket line counts as participation. An exception protects workers who neither participate nor have a direct interest and are outside the involved worker group. A dispute unrelated to the last workplace, or a lack-of-work layoff before the dispute, cannot support this denial. The bar ends after the calendar week in which the dispute ends, but other eligibility rules still apply.
Pensions can reduce workers' unemployment checks
A qualifying weekly pension reduces unemployment benefits dollar for dollar when its plan was maintained or funded by a base-period employer. The deduction does not apply if the claimant establishes that they contributed to the plan. A pension amount change affects unemployment benefits starting with the first full week after the change takes effect.
School workers face between-term benefit rules
School-term contract workers count as unemployed between terms even when their salary comes in 12 monthly payments. This does not by itself guarantee benefits. Reasonable assurance of next-term work requires a written, genuine offer of a specific job with terms not substantially less favorable. Later assurance can affect an earlier decision. Claimants denied under the applicable between-term rule can request retroactive benefits no later than 30 days after the next term begins.
Workers face availability rules and exceptions
Claimants generally must be able and available for a full normal workday and workweek within their labor market. The full-time rule does not apply when most base-period workweeks were part-time; suitable part-time work must be accepted when suitable full-time work is unavailable. Approved training and temporary job-search absences have exceptions, and availability is waived on Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. Incarceration during any part of a workweek bars benefits unless work-release privileges allow a reasonable chance to seek and obtain full-time work. Moving to a remote place with little chance of suitable work also bars benefits.
Workers get clearer rules after quitting
Good cause for quitting can include taking permanent or longer-hours work, serious moral objections, unlawful harassment, or health making the job impossible. Job-related reasons must be real, substantial, and compelling to a reasonable person. Domestic-violence survivors must make all reasonable efforts to keep employment; military spouses must relocate under permanent change-of-station orders and discuss accommodations. Voluntary retirement during downsizing counts as a personal quit when suitable work remains available. An indefinite unpaid suspension with no return date counts as discharge; overlapping quits and terminations are considered together only with a specific-date notice, a causal link, and close timing.
Personal circumstances recognized for job seekers
Idaho's unemployment rules recognize listed compelling personal circumstances, including serious illness, necessary treatment, family death or funeral, weddings, and childbirth. They also include sincerely held religious beliefs, jury duty, and specified court matters. Essential travel must take no more than 24 hours and obtain essential goods or services unavailable locally. Court attendance or a deposition must be required by a lawful subpoena. Immediate family includes spouses, children, foster children, parents, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, and those same relations by marriage.
Employers get clearer contribution payment deadlines
An unemployment contribution due on a weekend or holiday is due the next business day. Mailed payments count as paid on the postmark date. The department applies payments under its rules or policy.
Training refusals spare employers benefit charges
An employer's unemployment rating account is not charged when a worker refuses suitable work because of qualifying job training. This protects the employer from that benefit charge. The rule does not change the worker's benefit amount.
Privacy safeguards for workers' unemployment records
Idaho's Department of Labor director must establish privacy and disclosure procedures for employment-security information through rules or department policy. Procedures must address written informed consent for third-party disclosures, security requirements, and applicable costs. They must follow federal unemployment-information rules and Idaho public-records law.
Lower unemployment tax factor for employers
Beginning January 1, 2024, the desired fund-size multiplier for covered employers falls from 1.3 to 1.2, excluding cost-reimbursement employers. This lowers the base tax calculation, all else equal, while statutory rate limits still apply. The average-wage calculation used for the taxable wage base excludes state-government and cost-reimbursement employer wages and uses employer-reported worker counts. Employers' experience-rating accounts are not charged for benefits paid to workers discharged for workplace misconduct connected with their services.
Income reporting rules for job seekers
For Idaho unemployment claims, work counts as full-time when hours meet the industry's usual full-time standard. It also counts as full-time when earnings exceed 1.5 times the claimant's weekly benefit amount. Claimants must report all required income through continued claims, using the week or weeks assigned to each payment type. This includes earnings, tips, severance, vacation pay, relief or public-service pay, temporary disability benefits, and specified pension or retirement payments.
Inactive employers must requalify for discounts
Employers with no covered employment for six consecutive quarters or more must complete another qualifying period. Only then can they be considered for a reduced unemployment contribution rate. This provision does not state the new qualifying period's length or the eventual rate.
Employers face payroll recordkeeping requirements
All Idaho employers, even those outside unemployment coverage, must keep employment records for five years and provide requested business records. Records must cover worker identity, address, Social Security number, work location, job dates, separation reasons, pay, and expense payments. Employers paying unemployment contributions or reimbursing benefit costs must file quarterly electronic reports, including zero-wage reports, unless granted a waiver after a written petition. Newly covered employers must report earlier quarters of that calendar year; total and taxable wages are rounded down to whole dollars. Combined payroll arrangements must keep separate employer records and report wages under the correct employer, even when businesses are related.
Employers must explain coverage and separations
Employers claiming work or pay is outside unemployment coverage must submit supporting facts, signed by the employer or an authorized representative. Covered employers must file status reports; Idaho businesses must provide requested coverage information and update it when new facts arise. The Department of Labor can also require status reports from employers outside coverage. All employers must answer separation inquiries involving quits, misconduct discharges, labor disputes, suspensions, or reasons other than lack of work. Someone with personal knowledge must provide the response and supporting documents, sent electronically or by mail.
Household employers face unemployment coverage threshold
Domestic-service employers become covered after paying at least $1,000 in cash wages in a calendar quarter of the current or prior year. Covered services include cooking, housekeeping, gardening, and in-home care. The definition covers private homes, local college clubs, and local fraternity or sorority chapters. Work serving the employer's trade or business is excluded from this domestic-service category. Coverage brings employer duties and potential unemployment protection for workers.
More employer wages shape benefit limits
The state average weekly wage calculation includes state government and employers that reimburse benefit costs. It uses covered wages and employment from the preceding calendar year. This changes the wage data used to set the maximum unemployment benefit's 55% benchmark. The resulting limit depends on the wage totals.
Small occasional jobs lose unemployment coverage
Services are exempt from unemployment coverage when pay is less than $50 per calendar quarter and employment is not regular. The work must also be outside the employer's business or not promote or advance it. Employers avoid coverage duties for that work, but workers cannot use it as covered employment.
Workers must respond to wage claims
The labor department can dismiss a wage claim when a worker does not respond to a request for additional action. The response deadline is 30 days after notice is mailed to the worker's last known address. Dismissal does not prevent refiling, but the original legal time limits still apply.
Workers' tips and bonuses count as wages
Unemployment-law wages include cash and noncash pay for services already performed or still to be performed, subject to listed exclusions. Included pay covers service-related bonuses, commissions, officer pay, profit sharing, and certain allowances. Tips count when they reach at least $20 in a month and are reported in writing as federal law requires. Qualifying expense reimbursements and specified gifts or noncash payments are excluded. These definitions affect wage reporting, employer contributions, and how workers' pay is treated for unemployment purposes.
Business takeovers carry unemployment rating rules
Partial unemployment-rating transfers use the predecessor's four most recently completed reported quarters before the takeover or entity change. After a total transfer, a predecessor keeping workers for liquidation pays its assigned rate during liquidation, no later than the rate year's end. A successor can count predecessor wages toward taxable-wage calculations only when the experience rating transfers. To judge shared control, the department examines policymaking, daily management, worker supervision, ownership, and participation in controlling bodies.
Farms get a defined production test
The law defines how farm operators measure their production share for the unemployment-coverage test. For handling, processing, or storing unmanufactured commodities, the operator must produce more than half in both the current and prior calendar years. One commodity is measured by quantity. Multiple commodities are measured using the operator's share of processing wages.
Shared employers face financing and reporting rules
Professional employer organizations use different benefit-financing rules for nonprofit or government clients than for other clients. A compliant organization and client can jointly transfer the client's entire unemployment rating, but not part of it. Applications follow the statutory transfer deadlines measured from their contract; late applications leave wage reporting under the client's account. Parties can instead keep reporting under the client's account without transferring the rating. When only some workers join the arrangement and reporting uses the client's account, one quarterly report must list all client workers.
Rules set employers' reportable wage amounts
Idaho's Department of Labor values pay with no established value using factors such as similar-work wages and hiring contracts, then notifies employers. Agreed values for in-kind pay count only when reasonable; workplace meals and lodging are excluded only for substantial business convenience. Lodging must also be required for the job and employment, and employers must prove service wages meet prevailing rates. Wages generally count in the quarter paid or due, with separate rules for advance payments and back pay. Damages other than lost wages are excluded, but failing to separate covered work or service pay from other payments can make all that pay count as wages.
Five-year deadline for employer tax proceedings
Idaho's Department of Labor can begin proceedings to establish unemployment tax liability or enforce the employment-security law. It must issue a determination within five years of the quarterly report's due date or filing date, whichever is later. The clock can pause under the law's referenced tolling rules.
Sponsors & Cosponsors
Sponsor
COMMERCE AND HUMAN RESOURCES COMMITTEE
Affiliation unavailable
Cosponsors
Jim Guthrie
Republican • Senate
Lori Ann McCann
Republican • House
Roll Call Votes
Senate vote • 3/4/2025
Senate Floor Vote
Yes: 34 • No: 0
House vote • 2/11/2025
House Floor Vote
Yes: 70 • No: 0
Actions Timeline
Reported Signed by Governor on March 11, 2025 Session Law Chapter 29 Effective: 07/01/2025; 07/01/2025 IDAPA Sunset Clause - SECTION 35, 36, 37, & 38
3/13/2025Delivered to Governor at 11:37 a.m. on March 10, 2025
3/11/2025Returned Signed by the President; Ordered Transmitted to Governor
3/10/2025SenateSigned by President; returned to House
3/7/2025SenateReceived from the House enrolled/signed by Speaker
3/7/2025SenateReported Enrolled; Signed by Speaker; Transmitted to Senate
3/6/2025HouseReturned from Senate Passed; to JRA for Enrolling
3/5/2025HouseRead third time in full – PASSED - 34-0-1
3/4/2025SenateRead second time; filed for Third Reading
2/20/2025SenateReported out of Committee with Do Pass Recommendation; Filed for second reading
2/19/2025SenateIntroduced, read first time; referred to: Commerce & Human Resources
2/12/2025SenateReceived from the House passed; filed for first reading
2/12/2025SenateRead Third Time in Full – PASSED - 70-0-0
2/11/2025HouseU.C. to hold place on third reading calendar one legislative day
2/10/2025HouseRead second time; Filed for Third Reading
2/7/2025HouseReported out of Committee with Do Pass Recommendation, Filed for Second Reading
2/6/2025HouseReported Printed and Referred to Commerce & Human Resources
1/27/2025HouseIntroduced, read first time, referred to JRA for Printing
1/24/2025House
Bill Text
Bill Text
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