In response to the sustained period of high unemployment during the last recession, which began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, Congress enacted several temporary laws to extend Unemployment Ins urance (UI) benefits. For instance, from July 2008 through December 2013, the now-expired Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC08) program provided federally financed UI benefits in addition to state-financed, regular benefits available through the permanent-law Unemployment Compensation (UC) program. This temporary extension of UI benefits took place at a time when the federal government and the states faced serious budgetary pressures. In recent years, various proposals have been offered to reduce the large and growing federal budget deficits, as well as to make various reforms to the UI system, including measures to alleviate state UI financing stress and to improve the solvency of the UI trust fund. In this context of increased spending on UI benefits amidst ongoing concerns about the level of federal budget deficits, proposals to restrict the receipt of unemployment benefits by high-income individuals emerged. For example, in the 112 th Congress, the House-passed version of H.R. 3630 , the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, included a provision that would have imposed an income tax on unemployment benefits for high-income individuals. Using a scaled approach, the percentage of unemployment benefits subject to tax would have increased with an individual's Adjusted Gross Income (AGI)—beginning with AGI of $750,000 for a single tax filer and $1.5 million for a married couple filing a joint return. Under this proposal, unemployment benefits would have been taxed at 100% for a single tax filer with AGI of $1 million and for a married couple filing a joint return with AGI of $2 million. The final version of H.R. 3630 enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama ( P.L. 112-96 , signed on February 22, 2012) extended UI benefits, among other provisions. It did not, however, include the provision in the House-passed version of the bill that would have restricted unemployment benefit receipt based on income. While the debate in Congress commonly refers to a proposed policy of restricting the receipt of unemployment benefits by "millionaires," various proposals have specified different income thresholds. For example, one proposal would have placed restrictions on unemployment benefit income for a single tax filer with AGI of at least $750,000 (or at least $1.5 million for a married couple filing a joint return). Another proposal would have placed restrictions on unemployment benefit income for a single tax filer with AGI of at least $500,000 (or at least $1 million for a married couple filing jointly). Although the proposals varied in how they define high-income individuals, each would have restricted individuals and households with incomes above a specified threshold from receiving unemployment benefits. This report addresses many of the questions that have arisen regarding such proposals, including the potential number of people who would be affected and the potential savings to federal and state governments. To place these proposals into context, the report provides a brief overview of the UI system and explains why receipt of UI benefits is not restricted based on income under current law. It then presents Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data on the distribution of household income and unemployment benefits for two tax years: 2010, when UI receipt was at a recent peak, and 2014, the most recently available data, to shed light on the size of the group potentially affected by such proposals. The report raises policy considerations such as the potential impact of such proposals on federal expenditures, given the joint federal-state nature of unemployment programs. Finally, it summarizes relevant, recent legislation. A variety of benefits are available to involuntarily unemployed workers to provide them with income support during their spell of unemployment. These benefits include the Unemployment Compensation (UC) program and the Extended Benefit (EB) program. UC is a joint federal-state program financed by federal taxes under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) and by state payroll taxes under the State Unemployment Tax Acts (SUTA). The federal taxes fund federal and state UC program administration, the federal share of EB payments, and federal loans to insolvent state UC programs. State taxes fund the UC payments and the state share of EB payments. Most states provide for up to 26 weeks of UC benefits to eligible workers who become unemployed through no fault of their own, and meet certain other eligibility requirements. The EB program may provide additional benefits after UC program benefits have been exhausted. Within broad federal guidelines, states determine many of the substantive aspects of their UC program, including the level of payment, duration, and eligibility. This authority for the states to decide on program matters effectively results in 53 different UC programs that are financed by the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Currently, states may not restrict UI benefits by income level other than those income sources deemed related to their unemployment. This requirement is based upon a 1964 U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) decision that precludes states from means-testing to determine UC eligibility. The U.S. Labor Secretary expanded the restriction on means-testing to severely limit the factors states may use to determine UC entitlement. Under this interpretation, federal law requires entitlement to compensation to be determined from facts or causes related to the individual's state of unemployment. Thus, the DOL requires that states pay compensation for unemployment to all eligible beneficiaries regardless of their income level because individual or household income would not be considered to impact the fact or cause of unemployment. Table 1 shows the number of tax filers that received unemployment benefit income by categories of AGI for tax years 2010 (a recent peak in UI receipt) and 2014 (most recent year available). For income tax purposes, unemployment benefits include more than regular UC. They include any amounts received under the unemployment compensation laws of the United States or of a state; state unemployment insurance benefits and benefits paid to an individual by a state or the District of Columbia from the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund; and railroad unemployment compensation benefits, disability benefits paid as a substitute for unemployment compensation, Trade Adjustment Assistance, and Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance. Unemployment benefits do not include workers compensation. Among tax filers with AGI of $1 million or more, 3,171 reported receipt of unemployment benefit income in 2010. This represents 0.02% of all tax filers that reported receiving unemployment benefit income in each year. In tax year 2014, however, there were no tax filers with an AGI of $1 million or more who reported UI benefit income. There is a difference between the number of tax filers, the number of persons (or individuals), and the number of households. Households, which consist of one or more persons, may contain more than one tax filer. For example, a married couple may file separate tax returns or a joint tax return. This may impact the number of beneficiaries counted in Table 1 if both persons in a married couple receive unemployment compensation, and the couple files a single joint return, the number of tax filers receiving unemployment compensation would be equal to one. If they file separate tax returns, then they would be counted as two. Note that the tax filing data shown here somewhat understate the total number receiving unemployment benefit income. If an individual or married couple's total income from taxable sources is below the filing threshold, he or she is not required to file a tax return and therefore may not be included in the data for tax years 2010 and 2014. This would particularly understate the number of tax filers in the lower AGI categories. Table 2 shows the amount of unemployment benefit income received by tax filers by AGI category for tax years 2010 and 2014, where incomes are not adjusted for inflation. As shown in the table, the amount of unemployment benefit income received by tax filers with AGI of $1 million or more is relatively small. For tax year 2010, tax filers with at least $1 million in AGI reported receiving $40 million in unemployment benefit income, which represents 0.03% of total reported unemployment benefit income. For tax year 2014, however, there were no tax filers with at least $1 million in AGI who received unemployment benefits; therefore, there was $0 in reported unemployment benefit in come for this group. This section addresses some of the policy considerations associated with proposals to restrict the payment of UI benefits to those with high incomes. These include the potential effect on federal expenditures given the joint federal-state nature of unemployment programs and the potential increase in administrative costs associated with such proposals. Under permanent law, most UI benefit outlays are state funded (i.e., most UI benefits are funded with state taxes and paid by the states). This in turn implies that any savings under permanent law would mostly accrue to the states. States largely fund the primary program, the UC program, by collecting taxes from employers. The EB program is funded 50% by the federal government and 50% by the states under permanent law. However, until recently there were several temporary laws that provided 100% federal funding for (now-expired) EUC08 and EB benefits. For instance, P.L. 111-5 , as amended, temporarily provided for 100% federal funding of the EB program through December 31, 2013. The EUC08 program, which was 100% federally funded, was authorized under the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 ( P.L. 112-240 ) until the week ending on or before January 1, 2014 (i.e., December 28, 2013, in all states except New York State, in which the program ends December 29, 2013). Given the small amount of unemployment benefit income paid to "millionaires" and in the absence of further legislative action to extend the now-expired federal laws, potential savings to the federal government diminished at the end of calendar year 2013.