DES MOINES — Today, Governor Kim Reynolds signed SF 607, a bill lowering the unemployment insurance taxable wage base and decreasing the maximum unemployment insurance tax rate.
“Iowans are finding new jobs, on average, in just nine weeks. As a result, our unemployment trust fund is full,” Gov. Reynolds said. “Our nearly $2 billion fund balance is the ninth highest in the country even though we’re 32nd for population. With this legislation, we will reduce the unemployment insurance payments that employers make by half, resulting in nearly $1 billion in savings for businesses of all sizes and allowing employers to reinvest into their workers and communities.”
SF 607 decreases the unemployment insurance taxable wage base by 50%. The bill also simplifies the unemployment tax tables and decreases the maximum tax rate from 9% to 5.4%.
The bill goes into effect July 1, 2025.
Democrats slammed the bill, saying, “This afternoon, the governor took another swipe at working Iowans by signing into law a $1 billion tax break for corporations. This bad bill does nothing to repair Iowa’s unemployment system or bring relief to workers.”
In 2022, Iowa law was changed to reduce the maximum duration of unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 16 weeks.
It was also recently announced that a new unemployment system is operating in Iowa. Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) claims it modernized its system to make applying for unemployment benefits easier, faster, and more secure. For the first time, Iowans will complete the unemployment process from one central location, iowaworks.gov. This system change took place on Tuesday, June 3, 2025. This change impacts both individuals and employers.
1 thought on “Kim Reynolds signs bill slashing unemployment payments required from businesses”
This lady is a miserable beep beep ***** everything she does only shows what kind of a Karen she is . How in the world was she in office for long ? Thanking God she finally realized she is in the way and not running again! I just said it . Y’all were thinking it too! Lol goodbye Kim! May we never see anyone like you in office again. People like this always catch their karma one way or another. .. I bet her senior years are just as miserable as her childhood