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Thursday, February 11, 2016

Unemployment Insurance – Another Good Crisis

Despite the lies predicated by the Obama administration regarding an improving economy, many experts are growing increasingly concerned that we may be headed for another recession.

Because of this, states may suffer mightily being that several already are carrying massive deficits in their unemployment insurance funds. “A mere 18 states have enough money in their unemployment insurance trust funds to get through a 12 month recession, according to the Department of Labor.”

The state trust funds are designed to provide 26 weeks of unemployment insurance to residents. “Strikingly, many of those state funds are actually in worse financial shape now than they were before the 2008 financial crisis.”

Not surprisingly California is in the worst shape. The state’s unemployment trust fund is presently indebted to the federal government for more than $6 billion. Yes, the federal government provides emergency loans to states that can’t cover the cost of their own unemployment insurance. It’s a huge disadvantage to states who aren’t allowed to print their own money – a problem the feds don’t have.

The Fiscal Times laments this policy. No, not of the Fed printing money it doesn’t have, or the states borrowing funds they can’t pay back. They miss the good old days where states “raise taxes in good times to finance unemployment payments in bad times, to counteract the effects of widespread joblessness.”

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a shame! The people in Maryland and Delaware can't pay for the unemployment insurance for people in California. Dang it, the Founding Fathers were right, if the Federal Government got to big for it's britches, we all would suffer. It was never meant for people from one state to subsidize the living standard of another state.

Anonymous said...

There are not enough people working and contributing from the private sector. No wonder states are going broke! Manufacturing is for the most part non existent and the only non government jobs out there are in the service industry like retail and restaurant.
Average household incomes have also been declining since the great recession started in 2008. They can raise taxes and fees all they want, but I think we have now reached a point where we can no longer afford the taxes and fees that have been imposed upon us.