All For Naught? Unemployment Insurance system poised to repeat past mistakes

This week, North Carolina government officials announced that the state will pay off the unemployment insurance (UI) debt it owed the federal government. Likely to follow within the year will be state tax cuts for employers even while the harsh benefit cuts for jobless workers remain in place and leave the state’s UI system far weaker than it will need to be in the next recession.

The UI system exists to help jobless workers who become unemployed through no fault of their own. In so doing, the system protects our state’s economy from freefall during recessions. To truly build a solvent and effective unemployment insurance system after the Great Recession, North Carolina must learn from past mistakes and ensure employers make adequate contributions during the recovery so that the system can provide temporary but adequate support to jobless workers in a downturn.