1. US Payroll Implementation Guide
  2. Understanding New Hire Reporting

Understanding New Hire Reporting

To comply with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, all employers must report certain information about newly hired employees to designated state agencies. State agencies can use this information to:

  • Locate non-custodial parents who are delinquent in their child-support payments.

  • Establish child-support orders.

  • Enforce existing child-support orders.

  • Verify the legitimacy of employees' unemployment benefits or workers compensation payments.

Because reporting requirements vary from state to state, you might be required to generate a separate report for each state. For example, some states require that you submit information about whether employees and their dependents are eligible for medical insurance.

If the organization has employees in more than one state, you can fulfill the new hire reporting requirements in either of these ways:

  • Generate a separate report for each state in which the organization has employees, and submit each report to the appropriate state.

    Because reporting requirements vary by state, we recommend using this method to ensure that each state receives the information that they require.

  • Generate a new hire report for one of the states in which the employees work and include employees from multiple states on that report.

    Submit the report only to the state for which you generated the report.

When you generate only one report and include employees from multiple states, you must be sure that the report that you generate satisfies the reporting requirements for all of the states in which the organization has employees. The data selection for the report must include the work tax area code for each state with employees whom you want to include on the report.

To create new hire reports and magnetic media files, you must first enter all newly hired employees into the system. If necessary, you must also enter health insurance eligibility information for the employee and their dependents. After you have entered all employee information, you generate a workfile that contains all of the information that you are required to report. After you have generated the workfile, you can then produce reports and magnetic media files for each state to which you are required to report.