Why not add the long-term unemployed to the Work Opportunity Tax Credit?

[ck4829]

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is a Federal tax credit incentive that the Congress provides to private-sector businesses for hiring individuals from nine target groups who have consistently faced significant barriers to employment. The main objective of this program is to enable the targeted employees to gradually move from economic dependency into self-sufficiency as they earn a steady income and become contributing taxpayers, while the participating employers are compensated by being able to reduce their federal income tax liability. WOTC joins other workforce programs that help incentivize workplace diversity and facilitate access to good jobs for American workers.

http://www.doleta.gov/business/Incentives/opptax

These nine groups are:
Long-term TANF recipients
Other TANF recipients
Veterans
18-39 year-old SNAP (food stamps) recipients
18-39 year-old designated community residents
16-17 year-old summer youths
Vocational rehabilitation referrals
Ex-felons
SSI recipients

So why not make it ten? The WOTC is about enabling the target groups to become self-sufficient taxpayers with a steady income, right? So this sounds like the perfect thing for people who are facing involuntary long-term unemployment.

And as for a significant barrier to employment? Long-term unemployment is just that. More and more ads are requiring that the applicant be currently employed, skills do get rusty over time, and gaps in a person's resume are often marks of stigma; there needs to be a solution to that. Let's add the long-term unemployed to the WOTC.

And there are various ways it could happen:
People who expired all 99 weeks of unemployment benefits could apply
People who have graduated from College but have no reported income for a period of time
People who have not used up benefits but have no reported income
And other ways

It seems kind of unusual, we hear from the media and the politicians that we need to cut taxes to give job creators the confidence they need to hire the unemployed, but there could actually be a tax benefit for businesses to hire the unemployed, but yet it's not there.

[mimitabby]

1. good idea

but can you get your representative to back it?