S 495

Prioritizing Help to Businesses Act This bill authorizes additional H-2B visas for temporary nonagricultural workers in states with relatively low unemployment. Currently, such visas are capped nationally at 66,000 a year. For positions in states that had a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 3.5% or lower in at least three of the six most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly reports issued in the previous fiscal half year, a certain number of H-2B visas may be issued that do not count against the 66,000 per year cap. For such exempted H-2B visas, a state may receive each year no more than 125% of the number of visas for aliens working in the state in the last completed fiscal year or 2,500, whichever is less.