The recession of 2001 and unemployment insurance financing

Abstract

Although the economic downturn of 2001 was one of the mildest of the past fifty years, between 2002-04, several large states experienced difficulties financing their unemployment insurance (UI) programs. Vroman discusses the recession's effects on states experiencing UI funding problems and the borrowing options available when state trust fund reserves are inadequate. Among his findings, Vroman concludes that all of the states that had to borrow had low trust fund balances at the end of December 2000-just before the recession began-and that funding problems have been concentrated among the large states.Unemployment insurance ; Recessions ; Labor market