Sponsors (7)
The bill expands and standardizes support to help unemployed people start businesses and improves oversight, but it increases administrative demands on states and some claimants, risks reduced participant access if limits change, and may face implementation delays.
Unemployed workers gain access to structured entrepreneurial training, counseling, and technical assistance to start businesses, helping more people transition to self‑employment or launch small businesses.
States and program administrators get model activity lists, verification best practices, and a weekly certification mechanism, which standardizes program delivery, improves participant engagement, and speeds detection of noncompliance.
States that are ready can adopt the improved self‑employment assistance rules earlier, giving ready states flexibility to implement benefits and innovations sooner.
Some claimants could lose access if changes to numerical participant limits are tightened or not expanded, reducing the number of unemployed people who can participate.
State and local governments may need to allocate more staff time and resources to implement new rules, create model lists, and set up verification systems, increasing administrative costs and workload.
Requiring OMB approval and notice-and-comment rulemaking risks delaying practical implementation beyond the stated effective date, slowing rollout for states and participants.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Revises federal rules for State self-employment assistance programs: broadens qualifying activities, removes the ‘likely to exhaust’ test, adds weekly certification, adjusts participant limits, and requires Labor Dept. regs and guidance.
Changes the federal rules governing State self-employment assistance programs by expanding what counts as eligible self-employment activities, removing the requirement that participants be likely to exhaust regular unemployment benefits, requiring weekly participant certification to a State agency, adjusting limits on participant numbers, delaying implementation for two years (with an option for earlier State adoption), and directing the Secretary of Labor to write regulations and provide guidance and model activities. Also establishes an official short title for the Act and requires the Secretary of Labor, with OMB approval and after notice-and-comment, to issue implementing regulations and to provide States with guidance and best practices for verifying participant activity completion.
Introduced December 4, 2025 by Mike Carey · Last progress April 28, 2026