Unemployment Insurance and the Great Recession

Abstract

The Unemployment Insurance system of the United States is a federal-state partnership. It responded well to the usual frictional unemployment and to the several recessions since its creation in 1935. The recent Great Recession beginning 2008, however, was its most severe test. Numerous extended-benefit programs were called upon to aid the large number of unemployed men and women who had exhausted their benefits. This article examines the performance of the Unemployment Insurance program during that test with emphasis on coverage, benefits, funding, the Unemployment Trust Fund and the several Extended Benefit programs. In addition to the entire United States system, it focuses on the experience of the five largest states: California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas as a sample of the whole.