Unemployment: Self-Employment Assistance Program.

Existing law provides for the payment of unemployment compensation benefits during the period that a person is unemployed. Existing law imposes various requirements on the payments of benefits, including work search requirements. Existing law also establishes retraining programs for unemployed workers. Prior law, enacted in 1994 and repealed in 2005, established the Self-Employment Assistance Program for displaced workers. This bill would establish a similar Self-Employment Assistance Program, to be administered by the Director of the Employment Development. The bill would provide for a weekly allowance for participants equal to regular unemployment benefits, subject to various limits, and would impose various eligibility requirements upon participants, and would waive requirements relating to job search and self-employment, as specified. Since the benefits would be payable from the continuously appropriated Unemployment Fund, the bill would make an appropriation. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.