Insurance Against Unemployment

Report Outline
State and Federal Investigations of Unemployments Insurance
American Experiments with Unemployment Benefits
Legislative Proposals for Unemployment Insurance
Current Discussion of Unemployment Insurance

State and Federal Investigations of Unemployments Insurance

Unemployment has been recognized for a decade or more as a problem of national importance. Formerly regarded as the result of individual causes and as a matter for local relief, a series of events has led the American people to view unemployment as a problem of national concern and to attribute it to causes beyond the control of the individual worker or employer. This change in attitude began shortly before the outbreak of the World War with the development of the idea that business fluctuates in cycles between prosperity and depression, and the operation of the business cycle has since come to be considered the chief cause of widespread unemployment.

Official recognition of the national scope of the problem came with the President's Conference on Unemployment in 1921 which, among other things, recommended voluntary experiments with unemployment insurance. Local trade unions had long provided out-of-work benefits for their members. Joint schemes, set up by coöperation between unions and employers in certain industries, had been tried as early as 1894, And after 1915 several individual firms had experimented with unemployment benefit plans. Meanwhile, unsuccessful attempts to introduce compulsory unemployment insurance systems had been made in half a dozen or more of the industrial states. At Washington the subject was considered by congressional committees in 1916, and again in 1928–29, without affirmative action.

State and Federal Investigations of Unemployment Insurance

Public discussion of unemployment insurance was renewed last month when the governors of seven industrial states met at Albany, January 23–25, at the call of Governor Roosevelt, to consider the unemployment problem. The governors discussed with economists various schemes of insurance against unemployment and authorized the governor of New York, after further study, to call another conference to report on European and American experience with compulsory and voluntary plans. The governors' conference took no action committing either the executives or their respective states to any program of public unemployment insurance.