Whitehouse Visits Tedco to Announce Jobs Bill

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was at in Cranston today to announce a new jobs bill he will introduce in the Senate that will give tax breaks to companies that hire formerly-unemployed workers.

Tedco, a metal forming and stamping company that cranks out several million pieces per month, is a local manufacturer that offers good paying jobs to high-skilled workers.

The company highlights the type of business that will benefit from the jobs bill, Whitehouse said: companies that are looking to hire.

Starting in 2008, the company was hit hard by the recession and forced to lay off a large chunk of its workforce, company leaders said. The payroll fell from 16 workers to eight. A family business that employs three generations, everybody worked three multiple jobs and long hours to keep the business afloat. Now it has slowly become profitable again and the extra incentive from the jobs bill will make a difference.

“We’re going to need at least two positions coming up,” said Barbara Gallonio, general manager of Tedco. “We’ve been waiting for months, saying ‘what if, what if.’ A tax credit would be wonderful.”

If approved, the bill would give businesses a refundable tax credit of 15 percent of wages paid through the rest of this year and 10 percent in 2012 for qualified new hires.

The credit can be taken against wages paid up to $106,800 and a company is not limited in the number of new hires that could qualify for the credit.

A qualified new hire is someone who has been unemployed for at least 60 days.

As an example, an employer who hires an employee on July 1 with a salary of $50,000 would qualify for a tax credit of $3,750 this year and $5,000 next year.

“We’re hoping this will be something for people who think they see the need to hire, or they want to hire just like you, but they’re a little bit anxious and think they maybe should just wait a little longer,” Whitehouse said.

Whitehouse acknowledged getting the bill through congress could pose a challenge. Washington, D.C., is a city where things are notoriously difficult to get accomplished, he said. Previous bills that attempted to spur job creation got “jammed up with tons of amendments on totally unrelated subjects” on the Senate floor, Whitehouse said.

For this bill, he said, the plan is to force a simple up or down vote.

“If they don’t like it, let’s send it back and change it,” Whitehouse said. “Let’s not do millions of amendments.”

Whitehouse said the bill should resonate with voters and polticians alike. Both President Obama and Presidental Candidate Mitt Romney are talking about job creation.

“Both sides of the aisle are talking about jobs,” Whitehouse said.