PERSONAL REEMPLOYMENT ACCOUNTS
(PRA)
PILOT PROGRAM
A demonstration grant awarded to the Department of Labor and Industry, Workforce Service Division, to pilot the Personal Reemployment Account (PRA) program is currently operating to assist unemployed job seekers in securing new employment as quickly as possible. The approach of this program is a little different than other programs we have operated in the past. PRA’s are customer-managed accounts that allow individuals to purchase job training; supportive services and products from the marketplace and public or private service providers. Upon acceptance of the PRA, the recipient has a $3,000.00 account set up from which to purchase services, training, etc. for a period of one-year from their acceptance. In addition, a PRA recipient obtaining full-time employment within the first thirteen (13) weeks of their unemployment insurance claim may be eligible for an employment bonus under the program, up to $1,800.00. Once the employment bonus is received, the PRA account is then frozen for a period of six months. At the end of the six months, if the individual remains employed full-time, with no more than a 7 days break in employment (regardless of whether they have had one employer or numerous employers), they are then eligible for a retention bonus of up to $1,200.00.
In order to be eligible to be offered a PRA, specific conditions must be met. First of all, the unemployed individual must file for unemployment insurance benefits, be found monetarily and otherwise eligible for benefits. All eligible unemployment insurance claimants are reviewed by the “worker profiling system,” which is designed to identify those individuals who are most likely to exhaust all of their unemployment insurance benefits. Profiled individuals from the areas covered by the Cut Bank, Butte, and Lewistown Job Service Workforce Centers (which are also certified One-Stop Centers), as well as the Bozeman Job Service Workforce Center, which is an affiliate of the Belgrade One-Stop, are included in the pilot program.
There are several criteria used in identifying “profiled” individuals, such as:
- Whether or not the claimant has earned enough wages in the base period to be eligible to draw unemployment insurance benefits;
- The number of weeks a claimant is eligible for benefits;
- Number of companies that employed the claimant during the base period;
- Number of years a claimant was employed by their last employer
- Previous year’s unemployment rate in the claimant’s resident county;
- Whether or not the claimant’s last employer was apart of a growth industry;
- Claimant’s level of education; and
- Month in which the claim is filed, which is a seasonal factor.
The first PRA offer was made in Lewistown, Montana, in April, 2005, launching the PRA pilot program in the State of Montana. Since that time, an additional 66 offers have been made. Montana’s goal is to have a total of 158 PRAs in the State of Montana, during the three (3) year life of the program.
If you have questions regarding this program, please direct them to the
PRA Program Manager, Deb Buxbaum, at dbuxbaum@mt.gov, or by telephone at
(406) 444-3351.
