WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark R. Warner (D-VA), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced the bipartisan Save Our Seafood (SOS) Act, which would exempt fish processors—which are critical to Virginia’s economy—from the H-2B visa cap, which has made it difficult for local seafood processors to hire the seasonal workforce they need.

“The seafood industry is a critical part of Virginia’s economy, especially in Hampton Roads and on the Eastern Shore,” said Kaine. “I often hear from Virginia’s seafood processors about how hard it is to find seasonal workers, so I’m glad to introduce this bipartisan legislation with my colleagues to make it easier for these businesses to hire the workers they need.” 

“Virginia’s seafood industry relies on seasonal, H2-B workers to help meet demand during peak season,” said Warner. “Without this workforce, many of Virginia’s seafood processors would simply have to close up shop. I’m glad to introduce this legislation that will help Virginia’s businesses by ensuring they have the labor needed to keep their operations up and running.”

“Alaska’s seafood industry is a delicate chain – and when processors don’t have the workforce to meet demand, the whole industry can fall apart,” said Murkowski. “Coastal communities, family-owned fishing boats, and Alaskans who work in the industry need to know that they have fully-functioning operations where they can deliver their catch. Through this legislation, I’m working to ensure that the industry has a dependable workforce that can process and deliver the highest-quality seafood in the world.”

Seafood is a billion-dollar industry in Virginia, supporting over 7,000 jobs for Virginians and generating over $26 million in revenue annually. Many of Virginia’s seafood processors rely on workers from the H-2B visa program to harvest and process Virginia crabs and oysters in season, but processors annually struggle to get enough workers during the season when they are needed most. The SOS Act would permanently exempt seasonal, non-immigrant workers who work in seafood processing from the cap on H-2B visas, ensuring that processors have the workforce they need, when they need them to meet the increased demand at the start of the harvesting season.  

“The Virginia seafood processing industry is grateful for Senators Kaine and Warner reintroducing the Save Our Seafood Act. We appreciate the bipartisan group of Senators committed to supporting working seafood businesses around the country. Virginia seafood has participated in the seasonal, temporary H-2B program since 1997,” said AJ Erskine, Board Member, Virginia Seafood Council. “We manufacture domestic, perishable seafood products that require an increased seasonal workforce. Our seasons are defined by state and federal regulations and the environmental conditions in which we work. Senators Kaine and Warner understand that this is not a partisan issue. The seafood industry is simply asking for a small modification of an existing cap exemption. We thank Senators Kaine and Warner for their vision and support of our seafood industry.”

“Our 4^th generation family crab processing facility in Hampton continues to struggle to keep our doors open! The H-2B program has been our lifeline the last 30 years and without congressional help we will perish,” said John Graham III, President, Graham & Rollins, Inc. “The current lottery system currently deployed by Homeland Security is not feasible to sustain any kind of business and frankly is a disaster!!”

The senators have long supported the seafood industry. In 2023, Kaine and Warner introduced the Save Our Seafood Act, and Kaine met with heads of Virginia seafood companies in Lottsburg, VA to discuss the need to boost the seafood workforce. Earlier that year, the senators met with then-Labor Secretary Marty Walsh to discuss workforce challenges facing the Virginia seafood industry and urge the Department of Labor to consider reforms to the H-2B lottery to better meet seasonal labor needs. In 2022, Kaine and Warner also successfullypushed the Department of Homeland Security for the release of additional H-2B visas.  

The legislation was cosponsored by U.S. Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), John Kennedy (R-LA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).

Full text of the legislation is available here.

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WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) announced that the U.S. Department of Commerce has signed a preliminary agreement for up to $275 million in federal funding for Micron Technology to expand and modernize its manufacturing facility in Manassas, Va. The funding is the result of bipartisan legislation Warner wrote and successfully passed into law over many years to expand American production of semiconductor chips.

“I am proud to announce that $275 million should soon be headed to Virginia for Micron Technology to manufacture more cutting-edge semiconductors here in Virginia,” said Sen. Warner, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “Making more of these chips in America will strengthen our national security and create jobs, which is why I pushed to pass this funding through Congress, why I am working with Micron and the Biden administration to secure this investment in Virginia, and why I’m going to be making the case to the incoming administration that we need to keep investing in domestic manufacturing of critical and emerging technologies like semiconductors.” 

Nearly everything that has an “on” switch – from cars to phones to washing machines to ATMs to electric toothbrushes – contains a semiconductor, but just a small percentage of these ‘chips’ are currently made in America. Sen. Warner first introduced the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act to restore semiconductor manufacturing back to American soil in 2020, and 2022, Congress passed into law the CHIPS and Science Act, which included billions in funding championed by Sen. Warner to implement the law he wrote to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing.

As a result, the Department of Commerce has signed a Preliminary Memorandum of Terms (PMT) with Micron Technology for up to $275 million in proposed funding to expand and modernize its facility in Manassas. The proposed project would onshore Micron’s 1-alpha technology to its Manassas facility, significantly increasing output of more efficient, more powerful chips. Micron’s project in Manassas would create over 400 manufacturing jobs and up to 2700 community jobs at the peak of the project. 

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WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, (both D-VA) announced $17,136,632 in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Labor will be coming to Virginia to support workforce development, expand Registered Apprenticeship programming, and benefit public-private partnerships across a range of industries, including K-12 education, clean energy, transportation, and advanced manufacturing.

“Creating jobs is one of our top priorities, which is why we were proud to help pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS and Science Act,” said the Senators. “But it’s equally important that Virginians can access the training they need to harness new opportunities, including the many jobs those bills have produced. We’re thrilled that $17 million in resources is coming to the Commonwealth to help put those kinds of high-quality training programs within reach.”

The funding coming will be allocated as follows:

• The Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement will receive two allocations of funding totaling $7,136,652 to support the expansion of Registered Apprenticeship in industries such as K-12 education, transportation, clean energy, supply chain, hospitality, care economy, and other public sector occupations. The Department will distribute the funding to entities throughout Virginia.
• The Hampton Roads Workforce Council in Norfolk will receive $6,000,000 to support public-private partnerships that serve a range of industries and individuals to better workforce in in-demand fields.
• Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale will receive $3,999,980 to support public-private partnerships that serve a range of industries and individuals to better workforce in in-demand fields.

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WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine released the following statement after the Senate voted to avert a rail shutdown:

“We’re relieved that we averted a rail shutdown, which would have had disastrous consequences on our economy right before the holidays. But we’re disappointed that our colleagues rejected a separate bill we supported to provide sick days for our rail workers. The workers who keep our trains and economy running are invaluable. They need and deserve paid sick leave. Especially after COVID, the notion of seven days of paid sick leave for full-time workers is basic common sense. It keeps coworkers and customers healthier when sick employees are able to take time off to attend to their health needs. And this adds to the productivity of workplaces. We will continue to look for ways to protect workers.”

Sens. Warner and Kaine voted for both the bill to avert a rail shutdown and the bill to provide paid sick leave for rail workers.

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WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Sherrod Brown (D-OH) encouraged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to continue focusing on improving human capital disclosures and on reforms that would ensure shareholders can properly evaluate public companies’ human capital practices and investments in their workers. The letter urges the SEC to implement the recommendations included in a petition from the Working Group on Human Capital Accounting Disclosure, which seeks to level the playing field between investments in workers and investments in physical equipment.

“As the Commission considers improvements to Regulation S-K and human capital disclosure, the working group’s recommendations would go a long way in ensuring shareholders can properly evaluate public companies’ human capital practices and investments in their workers. Strengthening human capital disclosure is needed to reflect the modern economy, where public firms are increasingly deriving their value from intangible assets,” the senators wrote. 

They continued, “Human capital does not receive the same treatment as even R&D in this respect, placing spending on workers at a further disadvantage. Unlike R&D, human capital spending is included as part of a company’s administrative expenses and not as a stand-alone item. As a result, investors are not given the information to differentiate between a firm with poor human capital management and one that is making a concerted effort to invest in its workforce to increase worker capability and performance.”

On June 7, 2022 the Working Group on Human Capital Accounting Disclosures petitioned the Commission to improve human capital disclosures including the following recommendations: 

1. Requiring managers to disclose, in the Management’s Discussion & Analysis section of Form 10-K, what portion of investments in workers should be considered as an investment in the firm’s future growth to allow investors to distinguish between labor expenses and value-adding investments, like training or upskilling;
2. Treating workforce costs similar to investments in R&D by ensuring workforce costs are disclosed; and
3. Disaggregating labor costs to allow investors to clearly understand employees’ job function, expected value creation, and contributions to their company.

Since 2018, Sen. Warner has stressed the importance of updating human capital disclosure requirements to reflect the priorities of modern companies. Sen. Warner has long focused on prioritizing better reporting on human capital management and on making sure that companies are not discouraged – based on accounting or reporting rules – from investing in their workers. In a May 2020 letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Sen. Warner and Rep. Cindy Axne (D-IA) urged the SEC to require that human capital management information be made publicly available in a timely and accurate manner to help determine whether a company will be successfully able to weather risks following the COVID-19 crisis.

In May 2021, Sen. Warner and Rep. Axne reintroduced the Workforce Investment Disclosure Act to require public companies to disclose crucial workforce management metrics, including investments made in skills training, workforce safety, and employee retention. Sen. Warner also leads legislation, the Investing in American Workers Act, modeled on the R&D tax credit to further incentivize investments in companies’ most important asset, their workers.

A copy of the letter is available here and below.

Dear Chairman Gensler,

We are writing to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to adopt the recommendations included in the Working Group on Human Capital Accounting Disclosure’s petition to the Commission on June 7, 2022. As the Commission considers improvements to Regulation S-K and human capital disclosure, the working group’s recommendations would go a long way in ensuring shareholders can properly evaluate public companies’ human capital practices and investments in their workers. Strengthening human capital disclosure is needed to reflect the modern economy, where public firms are increasingly deriving their value from intangible assets.

We applaud the SEC for working on improvements to human capital disclosures as part of its regulatory agenda. In 2018, Senator Warner urged the Commission to focus on the treatment of human capital and noted the significant discrepancy between the treatment of physical investments and spending on human capital and research and development (R&D). A physical investment can be listed on a balance sheet and is often capitalized, whereas human capital and R&D investments are expensed. R&D is disclosed on its own expenditure line – reflective of its importance for firms’ valuation, competitiveness, and long-term performance – so that investors can assess company expenditures on R&D separately from other firm costs.

Human capital does not receive the same treatment as even R&D in this respect, placing spending on workers at a further disadvantage. Unlike R&D, human capital spending is included as part of a company’s administrative expenses and not as a stand-alone item. As a result, investors are not given the information to differentiate between a firm with poor human capital management and one that is making a concerted effort to invest in its workforce to increase worker capability and performance. The strengthened human capital disclosure must be focused on the discrepancy laid out above.

To do so, we respectfully urge the SEC to adopt the Working Group’s recommendations to improve human capital disclosures. Those recommendations include:

1. Requiring managers to disclose, in the Management’s Discussion & Analysis section of Form 10-K, what portion of investments in workers should be considered as an investment in the firm’s future growth to allow investors to distinguish between labor expenses and value-adding investments, like training or upskilling;
2. Treating workforce costs similar to investments in R&D by ensuring workforce costs are disclosed; and
3. Disaggregating labor costs to allow investors to clearly understand employees’ job function, expected value creation, and contributions to their company.

These quantifiable and comparable disclosures would significantly improve investors’ ability to understand firms’ human capital practices. While there are tradeoffs and costs associated with mandating additional disclosures, firms already collect most of this information for tax reporting. In addition, few could argue that these disclosures would be unimportant for investors, particularly at a time when public companies’ value is increasingly determined by intangible assets like its workforce.

We look forward to continued engagement with the SEC on this critical issue, and appreciate your consideration of these recommendations as the Commission moves forward with updating Regulation S-K to strengthen human capital disclosures. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

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 WASHINGTON – U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), John Thune (R-SD), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced legislation to allow retired first responders to withdraw from their retirement without being penalized. The senators’ legislation would improve and reform the Healthcare Enhancement for Local Public Safety Act (HELPS), by changing state and local direct payment requirements from mandatory to optional, and creating an alternative to the current method, allowing the retirement system to make the distribution to the retired public safety officer. The retiree can then make the premium payment to the provider and remain eligible for the tax exclusion.

“Virginia’s first responders put themselves at risk every day to protect our communities – the least we can do is ensure that they are taken care of in retirement,” said Sen. Warner. “I’m proud to introduce the bipartisan Police and Fire Health Care Protection Act of 2022, which will make it easier for tens of thousands of retired officers – like Mr. Wally Bunker, a stalwart advocate and retired police officer from Culpepper – to claim the benefits that they have earned.”

“Ohio firefighters and other first responders wear their bodies out protecting our families and communities, and they shouldn’t have to worry about being penalized for withdrawing from retirement that they’ve earned,” said Sen. Brown. “This is a simple solution that allows first responders to keep their own money and alleviate pressure on state and local governments.”

“We owe a great debt of gratitude to our retired police officers, firefighters, and other first responders who dedicated their lives to protecting our communities and keeping our friends, families, and neighbors across South Dakota safe,” said Sen. Thune. “Currently, it is extremely difficult for retired first responders to utilize an existing benefit that helps cover certain health care expenses, which is why I introduced this legislation that would ensure these retirees can make tax-free withdrawals from their pension and direct those amounts to qualifying insurance premiums.

“First responders play a vital role in our communities, addressing a variety of high-stress emergency situations throughout their careers. All first responders ought to be able to take advantage of a tax benefit that is intended to help them access health coverage in retirement,” said Sen. Grassley.

In order to implement the direct payment requirement under current law, state and local retirement systems are now responsible for directly paying often numerous health and long-term care providers and keeping track of changes to premium amounts and payment deadlines for thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of retirees. This already challenging task is made even more difficult because providers will often communicate only with the retiree policyholder and not with the retirement system. Information does not flow seamlessly, and inadvertent errors are made. In addition, due to the complexity, some retirement systems have made the decision to not implement HELPS, thereby resulting in retired public safety officers covered by these pension plans being ineligible for the tax benefit.

“Too often fire fighters are forced to retire early and have no access to affordable health insurance. We owe it to our fire fighters and EMS providers to help them access quality healthcare after making a career’s worth of physical and mental sacrifices for our communities,” said Edward Kelly, General President, International Association of Fire Fighters. “This legislation ensures our retired fire fighters can access their hard-earned retirement income to pay for health insurance costs. The IAFF thanks Senators Brown, Thune, Warner, and Grassley for their commitment to supporting our retirees and helping them to maintain a healthy and secure retirement.”

“In 2006, Congress enacted the HELPS Retirees Act, which provided a modest tax benefit to help retired public safety officers afford health insurance by allowing the use, on a pre-tax basis, of up to $3,000 annually from their pension funds health care and long-term care insurance,” said Patrick Yoes, National President, Fraternal Order of Police. “However, too many public safety officers were ineligible or lost their eligibility for this benefit because of the law’s ‘direct pay’ requirement. This means that the public pension system must pay the health or long-term care insurance company directly in order to exclude these payments from the employee’s gross income.  Officers whose pensions are or came to be administered by third parties could not take advantage of this tax break. We are very grateful to Senators Brown and Thune for introducing legislation which repeals this direct pay requirement and provides a modest increase to the benefit.”

“On behalf of Ohio’s and the nation’s public safety personnel we are grateful to Senator Brown for his leadership on this issue. The new legislation will ensure that first responders receive the assistance Congress intended them to receive with their health care expenses in retirement,” said Mary Beth Foley, Executive Director, Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund (OP&F).

Under the senators’ bill, plans that are able to implement HELPS through the current direct payment method, possibly because they have only one or two providers to pay and a small number of retirees, may continue to do so. However, for the many retirement systems that are experiencing administrative problems with the current requirement or have refused to implement HELPS because of the burdens, the senator’s legislation will allow them to make distributions to their retirees without rendering the retiree ineligible for the tax exclusion.

In cases where the distribution is made to the retiree, the legislation would require the retiree to include with their tax return an attestation that the amount sought to be excluded from the pension distribution does not exceed the amount paid by the employee for qualified health insurance premiums for the taxable year. The tax exclusion is capped under current law at $3,000 per year.

The bill has been endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police, National Association of Police Organizations, and the International Association of Fire Fighters.

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), chairman of the committee, today called on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require companies to report on how many workers they employ who are not classified as full-time employees, including independent and subcontracted workers.

“We believe that the disclosure of this data is critical to fully capture companies’ human capital management. We applaud the SEC for focusing on strengthening human capital disclosures as part of its regulatory agenda,” wrote the senators in a letter to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. “It is clear that investors need more information to understand how companies treat people, the most critical asset of any company. We agree that investors need disclosures that include quantifiable and comparable datasets that clearly articulate a company’s human capital management, such as metrics on turnover, skills and development training, compensation, benefits, workforce demographic, and health and safety… That picture would be wholly incomplete, however, if companies are not required to disclose information about the number of independent contractors they use on a regular basis and the entire workforce that is material to their business strategy.”

Examples of subcontracted out workers considered part of the material workforce include security personnel, janitors, food service workers, housekeepers for hotels and lodging real estate investment trusts (REIT), and custodial workers.

“In recent decades, companies have replaced in-house operations with contracting, on-demand work, or other forms of independent and contracted work that lower short-term costs for the business but come at the expense of workers, who receive fewer benefits, lower wages, and have less upward mobility within the organization. This is one of the defining tensions that has emerged as companies have prioritized short-term profits at the expense of investments in their workforce and long-term productivity. As you know, these decisions have material effects on a business’ financial performance,” the senators noted.

Concluded the senators, “We appreciate the SEC is working towards the shared goal of ensuring that investors and shareholders have the information they need to understand companies’ human capital management, a critical piece of understanding a company’s performance as well as potential long-term, systemic risks to the U.S. economy. We urge you to ensure that future SEC rulemaking captures this long-term trend of companies’ increasing use of outsourcing, independent contractors, and subcontracting, which will be a critical data point in understanding companies’ human capital management.”

Sen. Warner, a former entrepreneur and venture capitalist, has long stressed the importance of updating human capital disclosure requirements to reflect the priorities of modern companies. In May, Sen. Warner introduced the Workforce Investment Disclosure Act, which would require public companies to disclose basic human capital metrics, including workforce turnover rates, skills and development training, workforce health and safety, workforce engagement, and compensation statistics.

A full copy of the letter is available here and below.

Dear Chairman Gensler:

We are writing to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to ensure that, as part of its agenda to improve human capital disclosure, companies report on the numbers of their workers who are not classified as full-time employees, including independent contractors, as well as the entire workforce that is material to the company and its investors (the “material workforce”) such as subcontracted workers. We believe that the disclosure of this data is critical to fully capture companies’ human capital management.

We applaud the SEC for focusing on strengthening human capital disclosures as part of its regulatory agenda. It is clear that investors need more information to understand how companies treat people, the most critical asset of any company. We agree that investors need disclosures that include quantifiable and comparable datasets that clearly articulate a company’s human capital management, such as metrics on turnover, skills and development training, compensation, benefits, workforce demographic, and health and safety. As you have indicated in prior remarks, “Large and small investors, representing literally tens of trillions of dollars, are looking for consistent, comparable, and decision-useful disclosures in these areas to determine whether to invest, sell, or make a voting decision one way or another.”

That picture would be wholly incomplete, however, if companies are not required to disclose information about the number of independent contractors they use on a regular basis and the entire workforce that is material to their business strategy. Examples of subcontracted out workers that should be considered part of the material workforce include security personnel, janitors, food service workers, housekeepers for hotels and lodging real estate investment trusts (REIT), and custodial workers. In recent decades, companies have replaced in-house operations with contracting, on-demand work, or other forms of independent and contracted work that lower short-term costs for the business but come at the expense of workers, who receive fewer benefits, lower wages, and have less upward mobility within the organization. This is one of the defining tensions that has emerged as companies have prioritized short-term profits at the expense of investments in their workforce and long-term productivity. As you know, these decisions have material effects on a business’ financial performance. 

We appreciate the SEC is working towards the shared goal of ensuring that investors and shareholders have the information they need to understand companies’ human capital management, a critical piece of understanding a company’s performance as well as potential long-term, systemic risks to the U.S. economy. We urge you to ensure that future SEC rulemaking captures this long-term trend of companies’ increasing use of outsourcing, independent contractors, and subcontracting, which will be a critical data point in understanding companies’ human capital management. 

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine applauded two grants totaling $2,966,029 from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) awarded to Southwest Virginia to strengthen the region’s workforce development initiatives and outdoor recreation economy. The first is a $1,466,029 grant awarded to the Dabney S. Lancaster Community College in Clifton Forge for the development of workforce training opportunities to help individuals in the region gain key skills for good jobs. The second is a $1,500,000 grant awarded to Russell County for the "Building an Outdoor Recreation Economy in Southwest Virginia" project that will help support increased tourism in the region and create jobs.

“We’re glad to see these grants from the Appalachian Regional Commission go toward education, job training, and economic development opportunities in Southwest Virginia,” the Sens. said. “We will continue to champion policies that create jobs, grow our economy, and provide greater opportunities for families across the Commonwealth."

The grant awarded to Dabney S. Lancaster Community College will go toward the Appalachian Hardwood Training Initiative (AHTI) and will develop training opportunities for people working in sawmills and wood manufacturing facilities throughout the ARC region, as well as underemployed individuals in the region. Appalachian Hardwood Manufacturers Inc. members have identified key skills needed by the industry to address current gaps. The program aims to train workers to improve their skills and get jobs.

The grant awarded to Russell County, Virginia will go toward the "Building an Outdoor Recreation Economy in Southwest Virginia" project, which will involve the construction of the Three Rivers Destination Center (TRDC) in the middle of Virginia's coalfield region and serve as a hub to grow tourism in Southwest Virginia. The grant will create 16 new jobs and support $1.4 million in increased revenues for the area's businesses and government. The TRDC will highlight the area's recreational assets, help visitors plan trips, and connect tourists with regional amenities and businesses. The center will be located close to the Clinch River State Park, the Jefferson National Forest, Breaks Interstate Park, and other recreational amenities. The center will also serve as headquarters for area tourism organizations, which promote the 600+ regional tourism assets responsible for employing over 1,900 people with a payroll of $40 million throughout the 7-county region. The investment will help support increased tourism and spending, promote entrepreneurship, and help address the negative economic impacts from the downturn of the coal industry.

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) introduced legislation to provide much-needed tax relief to working artists by updating the Qualified Performing Artist (QPA) tax deduction, which allows certain performing artists to deduct the cost of expenses incurred in the course of their employment. The Performing Artist Tax Parity Act would update the thresholds of the QPA deduction to ensure that more lower- and middle-income artists can benefit from the tax break.

The Performing Artist Tax Parity Act is endorsed by numerous organizations advocating for the rights of emerging artists, including the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, the Actors’ Equity Association, the Theatre Communications Group, the Recording Academy, and the Nashville Songwriters Association.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating for performers and artists,” Sen. Warner said. “Even as widespread vaccinations allow venues to reopen, many actors, musicians and performing artists are still struggling to recover. I’m glad to be working on a bipartisan solution to help ease some of the burden on working artists during a very difficult time.”

“As a son of Tennessee and my state’s former Commissioner of Economic & Community Development, I appreciate how vital our entertainment sector is to both Tennessee’s rich culture and its economy,” Sen. Hagerty said. “I’m pleased to introduce and work on a bipartisan basis with Senator Warner on this important legislation that will help Tennessee’s creative industry and the performing artists who make it truly thrive. Under our legislation, lower- and middle-income performing artists from Mountain City to Memphis will get to keep much more of their hard-earned wages because it updates a Reagan-era tax deduction that helps artists account for the costs of work-related expenses and adjusts it for the damaging impacts of inflation.”

The Qualified Performing Artist tax deduction has not been updated since its inception in 1986 and is currently only available to those making less than $16,000 a year, meaning that very few artists qualify. The Performing Artist Tax Parity Act will update and increase the income ceiling to $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for married joint filers, allowing many more lower and middle-income performing artists to receive tax relief for work-related expenses. 

A copy of the bill text can be found here. Companion legislation has been sponsored in the House of Representatives by Reps. Judy Chu (D-CA) and Vern Buchanan (R-FL).   

“I want to thank Senator Mark Warner and Senator Bill Hagerty for drafting and introducing this important legislation. They are great champions of the creative professionals that keep our industry successful,” said SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher. "We have been fighting for this legislation because it will allow working class entertainment and media professionals legitimate deductions so that they can retain more of their hard earned money during these most challenging times.”

“I am grateful for the leadership of Senators Warner and Hagerty as they fight for tax fairness for performing artists while the industry is in a historic crisis,” said Kate Shindle, president of Actors’ Equity Association. “The overwhelming majority of Equity stage managers and actors are working-class people who work hard to make ends meet, and unlike other workers, they often have to spend 30 percent of their income on business expenses. Our producers can deduct their business expenses, and we should be able to do so too. The Performing Artist Tax Parity Act will put more money in the pockets of working performers when they need it the most as we work toward recovery in the arts sector.”

“Ensuring union creative professionals can once again deduct work expenses is a top priority for DPE and our affiliated unions in the arts, entertainment, and media industries. We commend Senators Warner and Hagerty for introducing this important legislation in the Senate, which will put money back in the hands of hard-working, middle class professionals,” said Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE) President Jennifer Dorning.

“As the Senate Finance Committee moves to complete deliberations on its fiscal 2022 tax proposals, it should be noted that the more than 80,000 professional musicians of the American Federation Musicians have long used the Qualified Performing Arts Tax Parity Act provisions of the IRS code to recover usual and necessary expenses that employers in this industry have for decades refused to reimburse,” said AFM President Ray Hair. “Working musicians continue to struggle while recovering from the loss of a bulk of their live music performance income due to the COVID19 pandemic. The Performing Artist Tax Parity Act is sensible legislation that we can all agree on.  It will restore these deductions and help musicians and other entertainment professionals recover from the ravages of the pandemic, which brought our industry to a screeching halt, while helping working artists and their families become whole again.”

“I commend Senators Warner and Hagerty for joining Representatives Chu and Buchanan in putting aside partisanship to help thousands of middle class behind-the-scenes entertainment workers and creative professionals,” stated IATSE International President Matthew D. Loeb. “The inability to deduct work expenses has been hurting our members long before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down our work and wiped out our wages. Now, with a full return to work in sight, Congress should pass this bill, establish tax fairness, and ensure our workers come back stronger than before.”

“Theatre Communications Group is pleased to endorse the Performing Artist Tax Parity Act, a tax correction sorely needed by performing artists, especially now, as their lives have been upended by COVID-19,” said Laurie Baskin, Director of Advocacy for Theatre Communications Group.

“RIAA strongly supports this bipartisan effort to make the tax code work for artists and musicians. This legislation will strengthen our music ecosystem and create new jobs and opportunities in touring, recording, and more – all while opening the door just a little wider for the next generation trying to break through. We applaud Senators Warner and Hagerty for fighting for tax fairness for working artists and musicians,” said RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier.

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WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Mark R. Warner and Senator Tim Kaine, co-chair of the Senate Career and Technical Education (CTE) Caucus, announced $2,699,000 in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA)’s YouthBuild grant program to provide job training and education for at-risk youth. 

“These dollars will provide additional resources for at-risk young Virginians and help put them on a path toward successful careers,” the Senators said. “These federal investments in community-based job programs will be crucial to our country’s economic recovery.”

Warner and Kaine have been leaders in the Senate on efforts to support skills training programs to prepare students and workers for good-paying, in-demand jobs. In March, Kaine reintroduced the bipartisan Jumpstart Our Businesses By Supporting Students (JOBS) Act, cosponsored by Warner, to help improve access to job training programs by expanding Pell Grant eligibility. In May, Kaine also reintroduced the Assisting Community Colleges in Educating Skilled Students (ACCESS) to Careers Act to boost student success and career readiness. 

YouthBuild is a pre-apprenticeship program that provides education and work training opportunities for vulnerable youth ages 16-24 who dropped out of high school. As part of the program, these young Americans will split time between job training and the classroom, where they earn high school diplomas or equivalency degrees and prepare for postsecondary training opportunities. This national program serves more than 6,000 youth annually in more than 40 states. 

The funding will be distributed as follows: 

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WASHINGTON – With more and more businesses rooted in service and intellectual property, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne (D-IA) reintroduced legislation today to require public companies to disclose crucial workforce management metrics, including investments made in skills training, workforce safety, and employee retention. 

“In our information-based economy, workers are easily one of the most valuable assets that a company can have. However, there continues to be too much variability among public companies when it comes to disclosing human capital metrics,” said Sen. Warner. “This legislation will help provide a clearer picture of how public companies are managing, supporting, and investing in their workers – factors that significantly influence a company’s ability to innovate and compete.”

“Over the past century, we’ve seen businesses become less reliant on physical assets and more reliant on their workers, but the public disclosures we ask of our businesses don’t cover the investments they’re making in their employees,” said Rep. Axne. “We expect our public companies to disclose their holdings and their balance sheets – but in an economy that needs people in order to be productive, we must keep that same transparency to make the U.S. a leader in helping investors understand the long-term prospects of the companies they’re investing in. The COVID-19 pandemic has only emphasized how important this information is, especially when it comes to workplace health and safety or the ability to work from home.”

In 1975, more than 80 percent of the S&P 500’s market value was in companies’ tangible assets, such as real estate holdings or purchased equipment. By 2015, tangible assets accounted for less than 20 percent.

The Workforce Investment Disclosure Act would require public companies to disclose basic human capital metrics, which have an increasingly high value across industries in our 21^st century economy. These metrics include workforce turnover rates, skills and development training, workforce health and safety, workforce engagement, and compensation statistics. This legislation would build on existing disclosure requirements, which do not currently provide sufficient information for potential workers and investors looking to evaluate modern businesses. 

“This bill takes disclosure on every company’s most valuable asset, People, out of the shadows and into the light. Every public and private company should be sharing these metrics in their public disclosures.” Jeff Higgins, founder and CEO of Human Capital Management Institute. 

"We know that human health, safety, and well-being are material to businesses’ bottom line, and human-centered policy interventions are critical to improving employee health, engagement and productivity,” said Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO of the International WELL Building Institute. “We commend Representative Axne and Senator Warner for their continued leadership and introduction of the Workforce Investment Disclosure Act. This bill, which takes a significant step forward on driving transparency and incentivizing investment in the workforce, will help ensure businesses prioritize the overall welfare of their most valuable asset - their people. By simply compelling businesses to report on their workforce management policies, we can accelerate better corporate practices, recognize market leaders and spur powerful investments in the health, safety and equity of employees around the country."

Gary Gensler, the new Chair of the SEC, recently said that updating disclosure rules on workforce metrics would be an “early focus” and a “top priority” of his tenure. Both Chairman Gensler and his predecessor, Chairman Jay Clayton, have affirmed the need for more information about companies’ human capital. 

The bill has the support of the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) and the National Employment Law Project. Additionally, notable investment and asset management firms already support updating these disclosure requirements.

In 2019, leadership of major investors BlackRock and State Street Global Advisory both emphasized the importance of human capital — and have indicated the need to create standardized reporting. In addition, research from the Embankment Project on Inclusive Capitalism, a partnership between asset managers directing $30 trillion and large public corporations, found U.S. companies that disclose their total human capital costs outperform those that do not.

Sen. Warner, a former entrepreneur and venture capitalist, has long stressed the importance of updating human capital disclosure requirements to reflect the priorities of modern companies. In a May 2020 letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Sen. Warner and Rep. Axne urged the SEC to require that human capital management information be made publicly available in a timely and accurate manner to help determine whether a company will be successfully able to weather risks following the COVID-19 crisis. 

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