Arguments Against Unemployment Insurance

Unemployment Insurance (UI) is a joint federal-state social insurance program created under President Roosevelt as part of the Social Security Act of 1935. Payroll taxes levied on employers are used to provide temporary partial replacement of wages to workers who are laid off by companies. The tax levied on employers is partially experience rated, meaning that it rises as firms have more layoffs. Despite being both a federal and state program, it is mostly run by the states. Each state is free to determine their own eligibility criteria, the maximum amount of benefits that can be received, their own employer tax rates and the duration of benefits received. It was created because ( answer the questions) Despite its generous offerings, not all

Since the 1950s, fewer than half of the unemployed have actually collected UI benefits. Eligibility is based on three basic federal guidelines and state specific criteria. An unemployed worker must have had a sufficient level of prior employment during a specific base period. Typically, a worker will have to have had $2,500-$3,500 in quarterly earnings prior to becoming unemployed. Secondly, workers who wish to receive benefits must have left their job by ‘no fault of their own’. Simply quitting a job because of wage discrepancies or personal reasons is typically not a valid reason to collect UI benefits. Other disqualifiers include: someone looking for their first job, or a worker being terminated. Being fired is different from being laid off because being laid off is not considered to be the fault of the employee. Being laid off is often referred to as a “reduction in force” or a “downsizing” of the firm. The unemployed worker must have been laid off for economic reasons regarding the firm. Third, the claimant must be actively seeking work. State-specific guidelines vary widely, for example: in some states, a spouse’s relocation of employment is valid reason for a UI claim, but in some states, this is not

These standards are: availability for work, actively searching for work, and refusal of suitable employment. Sometimes, recipients have to provide evidence that that they have actively been looking for employment in order to continue receiving benefits. Some states require availability of any work where other states require availability for ¬suitable work. Every state is required to enforce a Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services system under which workers who are predicted to be likely to exhaust their benefits must participate in enhanced reemployment services as a condition of continuing