Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) a primary sponsor of HR 2082, the Work Opportunity Credit Improvement Act offered the following during his testimony on Thursday before the House’s Subcommittee on Select Revenue. If you would like to listen for yourself, Congressman’s Schock’s testimony begins at time stamp 1:08:58. These specific comments begin about two minutes later at timestamp 1:11:06.
I have taken a leadership role in the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, which provides a reduction in tax liability for private sector employers who hire employees off of public assistance.
Most recently this Congress expanded this program to include unemployed veterans; however without the core work opportunity program, employers will be less willing to participate in the new veterans hiring credit
It’s hard for employers to justify maintaining that costly infrastructure of a work opportunity program, which will now be one-tenth the size of the core work opportunity program unless it is extended.
For an average tax credit of a thousand dollars, through WOTC, it saves the federal government $5,000 in public assistance payments in just a year. Nearly an equal amount in state public assistance contributions as well is saved.
