TRENTON – A bill sponsored by Senator Ellen Karcher which would allow early retirees to be eligible for unemployment benefits was approved by the Senate today by a vote of 37-0.
“In recent years, many tech-based giants, such as IBM, Lucent Technologies, AT&T and others, have had to rely on early-retirement incentives to cut costs and stay economically solvent,” said Senator Karcher, D-Monmouth and Mercer. “Effectively, these early retirees avoided being laid off by voluntarily cashing in on their years of service, but regardless of how they got there, the early retirees, many of whom still have to support families and cannot make ends meet on fixed incomes, are unemployed. To meet the spirit of the State’s unemployment law, they should be allowed to collect if they are eligible for unemployment benefits.”