WASHINGTON — Companies hiring unemployed workers will be able to take a credit on payroll taxes under the jobs bill signed into law Thursday by President Obama. The bill passed the Senate a day earlier in a 68-29 vote.
“It is the first of what I hope will be a series of jobs packages that help to continue to put people back to work,” Obama said after the vote. “I also want to say to the Republicans who voted for this bill that I appreciate their willingness to work with Democrats in a bipartisan fashion to get America moving again.”
The measure exempts businesses hiring the unemployed from paying the 6.2% Social Security payroll tax through December, and offers an additional $1,000 tax credit per worker if they stay on the job a full year.
The bill may create as many as 250,000 full-time jobs by the end of the year, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, at a cost of about $18 billion.
The bill also includes $20 billion for highway and transit programs, to make up for decreased gasoline-tax revenues and help fund summer construction projects.
Critics of the bill say that the tax credit will likely help businesses that were looking to hire already. “Until business picks up for small-business owners, there's not going to be a huge incentive to add new workers,” Bill Rys, of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), told the Associated Press.
Congress is also prepping a $150 billion bill that would extend unemployment insurance and COBRA health-insurance subsidies, as well as a measure that promises to loosen credit and spur new small-business investment.
“This is just the first [and] certainly not the last piece of legislation that we will put forward in relation to jobs,” says Senate sponsor Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). “If we don't create jobs, the economy will not move forward.”
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