|
In early 1937, as part of a comprehensive initiative
to explain the new Social Security Act to the public, the Social
Security Board created a series of publications attempting to
communicate both the principles of operation of the various programs
under the Act, and, especially important in the eyes of the government
executives, the underlying rationale for the various programs.
This March 1937 booklet is the Board's efforts to explain the
new federal unemployment compensation program.
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION
WHAT AND WHY?
SOCIAL SECURITY BOARD
WASHINGTON, D. C.
Publication No. 14
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON 1937 |
|
| |
|
|
| This brief study of the purposes and operation
of unemployment compensation systems was written by Gladys R. Friedman,
Technical Adviser in the Division of Legislative Aid, under the
immediate direction of Merrill G. Murray, Chief of that Division,
and under the general supervision of R. Gordon Wagenet, Director
of the Bureau of Unemployment Compensation. |
| |
|
|
CONTENTS
I. THE NEED FOR UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION
II. THE CASE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION
III. A SHORT HISTORY OF UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES
The British system
The German system
IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION IN THE UNITED STATES
Early legislative history
The Federal Government enters the scene
The Committee on Economic Security
V. PROVISIONS OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT RELATING TO UNEMPLOYMENT
COMPENSATION
VI. MAJOR CONSIDERATIONS IN UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION
Who shall be covered?
Who shall contribute?
What type of fund shall be established?
What kind of unemployment shall be compensated?
How long shall the waiting period be?
What shall eligibility for benefits depend upon?
Shall any periods of involuntary unemployment go uncompensated?
How large shall benefits be?
How shall unemployment compensation be administered?
BIBLIOGRAPHY |
| |
|
|
I- The Need for Unemployment
Compensation
For the past 4 years the American people have witnessed a tragic
demonstration of the breakdown of our older methods of dealing
with men and women who are out of work through no fault of their
own. The fundamental case for unemployment protection lies
in the fact that under a democratic form of society we are forced
to prevent any large scale starvation. Funds must be provided
somehow . . . . It is practical sense to build a system which will
gather the funds in good times and disburse them in bad times. This
simple theory underlies all formal proposals for unemployment insurance,
for unemployment reserves.-- Stanley King in American Labor
Legislation Review, December 1933, p. 170.
THE hazard of unemployment is one of the most serious confronting
wage earners in an industrial society. As our economic life becomes
more complex and industry more interrelated, economic maladjustments
are felt more and more deeply throughout the country. Although we
have no accurate measure of unemployment, all available information
indicates that no year in the past half century has been free from
unemployment. Even in good times a large number of employable persons
are unemployed each year. With returning prosperity now in
the offing, nothing should obscure the fact that unemployment was
not created by the depression, nor will it disappear with
recovery. Unemployment is a continuing problem of modern society
and must be met by a continuing program.
During 1929, the year of our most marked prosperity, there were
at least 1,800,000 unemployed workers in the United States. Even
if American business could at once return to its 1929 status, there
would still remain a body of unemployed workers nearly as
large as that in Great Britain at the time of its most intense depression.
It is clear, therefore, that unemployment caused by cyclical business
fluctuations, such as we have recently witnessed, is not the only
type with which we have to deal. Seasonal unemployment, technological
unemployment, and many other types of unemployment will continue,
even in prosperity, to threaten the welfare of our population and
the stability of our social structure. It is important now to provide
a plan for compensation to alleviate the effects of unemployment
in normal times, to bridge the gap from one period of employment
to another. The new problem of the permanently unemployed which
has been bequeathed to us by the depression cannot be solved by
unemployment compensation. Of those now unemployed, it is feared
that, even when business rises again to 1929 levels, four or five
million will remain permanently without work. Relief measures would
appear to be the only method of caring for these people, yet the
costs of unemployment relief will reach staggering heights if we
attempt to use only this form of aid for those who currently lose
their jobs.
Sample turnover figures show that, even now, when total employment
is increasing, 3.56 workers are "separated" every month
for each 100 industrial jobs. This means that, in American factories
alone, 285,000 workers each month, or over 3,000,000 each
year, have to seek new jobs and are at least temporarily unemployed.
Although many of them may be successful after a brief search, it
is inevitable that many others will remain without work for sizable
periods.
Many similar figures could be cited to show that, even when employment
is increasing in the aggregate, the total figures conceal decreases
in specific industries and localities. For example, in April 1936,
total employment in all United States manufacturing industries increased
1.2 percent over the month before, but there were decreases ranging
from less than 0.1 percent to 30.9 percent in over 30 of the 90
industries surveyed. In that same month, total employment
in both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing occupations increased
from 0.1 percent to 5.5 percent in 37 States, but it decreased from
0.1 percent to 12.0 percent in 12 States.
Some indication of the volume of new, current unemployment
can be gleaned from employment office statistics. Every month in
the last half of 1935, during a period, again, when employment was
increasing and after over 6,500,000 unemployed persons had previously
registered, over 450,000 new, previously unregistered workers applied
for work at the offices of the United States employment services.
In July, for example, the number was 704,000, of whom 16.4 percent
had been unemployed for less than 1 month, but almost the same number,
16.3 percent, had been out of work for from 1 to 6 months.
The results of seasonal and chance fluctuations in business account
for much of this unemployment. But certain persistent tendencies
in our economic structure, such as technological change, also
bring their share of it. Increased mechanization of industry, new
and improved methods of production, general increase in the productivity
of labor and capital all these, whatever their ultimate effect on
total employment, cause the displacement of individual workers from
their jobs and unemployment of significant duration. From 1929 to
1933, the productivity of labor in manufacturing increased by from
10 to 20 percent. Without a corresponding increase in the
demand for manufactured goods this must have meant a decrease of
similar size in employment. It is worthy of note, too, that
the depression has deferred the installation of new machines and
methods, and it is expected that the decisive return of prosperity
will witness a perhaps unprecedented improvement in productivity
with its correlative increase in technological unemployment.
Prosperity, far from making unemployment compensation unnecessary,
will, paradoxically, increase the necessity for it. Like technological
change in some of their effects are the ever recurring shifts of
style and consumption that create new industries and displace old
ones. Such changes as those
from coal to oil for domestic heating, from
It is often asked if we can afford unemployment compensation,
if industry now struggling out of the depression can bear a further
handicap. Such a question is quite misleading because it obscures
the fact that it is unemployment itself, not unemployment compensation,
which is expensive. Unemployment is incalculably expensive. Its
cost to workers, to business, to government, and society at
large can hardly be exaggerated. But unemployment compensation is
not expensive. It simply brings out into the open and more equitably
distributes a part of the unavoidable cost of unemployment. This
part of the cost, further, is levied at a time when it can most
easily be borne.
Since returning prosperity will tend again to lull us into a false
sense of security and indifference to the problem, it may be advisable
to recall the successive stages in the recent development of our
attitudes to this problem. First, we denied that there was or could
be any unemployment. Second, we admitted the fact of some unemployment
but denied that it was serious. Third, we conceded its seriousness
but contended that it would and could be relieved by private charity,
even though local public relief was already carrying the greater
part of the burden. Fourth, the increasing pressure on State
and local finances forced us to accept a policy of Federal relief
or work relief, in the belief that only a temporary adjustment to
a passing emergency was necessary.
During the depression the Federal Government spent about $7,000,000,000
on its relief and work relief programs. In addition, State and local
governments spent about $1,500,000,000. The burden of unemployment
relief was beyond the capacity of most local governments and was
a major reason for recent Federal deficits.
There is a fifth step which was greatly stimulated by the passage
on August 14, 1935, of the Social Security Act. This step was the
enactment by States of laws to protect their industrial and commercial
workers against some of the hazards of involuntary unemployment.
As far back as 1916 the first bill for unemployment compensation
was introduced in a State legislature; in 1920 22 bills were introduced
in five State legislatures, and in 1932 the first unemployment compensation
law was passed in Wisconsin. On December 31, 1936, 35 States and
the District of Columbia had, by the passage of unemployment compensation
laws, taken this final step abandoning our reliance on relief doles
and adopting in their stead the common sense device of unemployment
compensation. For it is surely nothing but common sense to
set aside by contributions, during periods of employment and prosperity,
a fund out of which, during subsequent unemployment, benefits may
be paid to insured workers. Unemployment benefits, guaranteed in
advance, certain in amount, paid out of a fund built up by orderly
and systematic means, are clearly more businesslike than any form
of haphazard relief, hastily set up and financed in the midst of
a crisis. Such a program gives all workers a sense of security.
It decreases the fear of unemployment which hangs like a cloud over
all workers. To the extent that the fear of unemployment can be
decreased, productive efficiency, as well as personal well being,
will be increased. The increase in efficiency might easily more
than offset any premium cost.
We have long tried to evade the problem of unemployment, the very
size of which we do not yet know. Unemployment compensation will
require a more adequate system of public employment offices and
more adequate employment and unemployment statistics. More effective
machinery for handling the unemployed will be paralleled by more
detailed knowledge of the nature and scope of the problem. Unemployment
compensation may thereby produce that knowledge of unemployment
which will bring with it the power to attack the problem constructively
in other ways.
II- The Case for Unemployment Compensation
The cost of security for millions of workmen is not only very
small. It is not a new cost. Like the price of many other things,
we are paying it now without knowing it. It is not an additional
cost of doing the business of the Nation; it is partial recognition
that the real responsibility for unemployment is not personal
but social. Somebody is paying right now for unemployment and must
continue to pay. Unemployment benefit funds provide a more equitable
way of assessing the cost of unemployment on the causes most responsible
for it.-- C. A. Kulp in American Labor Legislation Review,
March 1934, p. 34.
UNEMPLOYMENT compensation is a method of safeguarding individuals
against distress for a short period of time after they become unemployed.
It is designed to compensate only employable persons who are able
and willing to work and who are unemployed through no fault of their
own. Instead of making the individual get along on a steadily descending
level of living until he has exhausted the last shred of his savings,
credit, and the generosity of his relatives and friends, thus
reaching a point of destitution at which he is eligible for relief,
unemployment compensation sets aside contributions during periods
of employment and provides the individual with benefits as
a legal right when he becomes unemployed. During the periods of
prosperity a fund is built up, to be available for the payment of
benefits in the periods when industry fails to maintain employment.
Unemployment compensation is not a system under which every unemployed
person is assured of benefits for any and all unemployed time. It
provides protection primarily for the person who normally is steadily
employed. It can take care of
the seasonal worker or the intermittently employed person
only for very limited periods of time. It makes no attempt to protect
unemployable persons such as those who are so old or so handicapped
physically that they are unable to work. In normal times, the great
majority of persons covered by unemployment compensation who become
unemployed will find new employment before exhausting their benefits,
but, in times of cyclical unemployment, the worker covered by a
system of unemployment compensation who has exhausted his rights
to benefits may have to apply for relief. Mass unemployment, such
as that which we have recently experienced, cannot be entirely alleviated
by a system of unemployment compensation. Such a system does, however,
act as a first line of defense in protecting the industrial worker
from distress caused by involuntary unemployment. By the distribution
of benefits specified in advance, out of a fund built up in an orderly
and systematic manner, unemployment compensation can enable individuals
to plan their scale of living for a definite length of time in advance.
Unemployment compensation can thus act as a cushion to the downswing
of the business cycle when business is beginning to slacken, since
it helps to sustain the buying power of the consuming public.
Unemployment compensation is not a substitute for the provision
of relief. Some method of alleviating the suffering caused by mass
unemployment of long duration, not cared for by a system of unemployment
compensation, is necessary. Unemployment compensation will, however,
result in smaller expenditures for relief and, by the distribution
of benefits in the early stages of a depression, will serve as a
brake on deflation. It may, therefore, save many persons from applying
for relief at all. The cost of unemployment compensation will not
represent a net increase either in taxes or in the costs of doing
business. Any amounts set aside during prosperity to alleviate the
distress of unemployment will mean so much less to be raised for
public or other relief at the time of depression, when money is
most scarce and difficult to raise. The known and calculable costs
of an unemployment compensation scheme are more easily absorsed
by individual firms and by the economic system in general over a
period of years than are the sudden and large demands which come
with severe economic recession.
People who object to unemployment compensation often say that it
represents the wrong approach to the problem of unemployment, since
it is admittedly a palliative. They maintain that the important
and basic job is to prevent unemployment. No one will deny that
the prevention of unemployment must always be our first goal; it
is in recognition of this need that all unemployment compensation
systems provide that benefits be paid through public employment
offices, so that the receipt of benefits will be secondary to the
primary and more important task of obtaining employment. But
recognition of the primary importance of eliminating unemployment
does not do away with the need for mitigating its effects. To the
extent that preventive methods are successful, the problems of unemployment
will be lessened.
Another objection frequently heard is that a system of unemployment
compensation will cause increased unemployment for two reasons:
(1) The imposition of a tax on pay rolls will induce employers to
mechanize their plants further and thereby increase the volume of
unemployment in the country, and (2) the additional tax placed on
industry will result in increased prices to the consuming public,
which will inevitably cause a decrease in the consumption of products
and thereby a reduction in the number of persons required to produce
these goods.
There is no evidence that unemployment compensation has caused increased
unemployment in Great Britain or Germany, two highly industrialized
countries with national compulsory systems of unemployment insurance.
On the other hand, the United States, with no similar system, had
a larger proportion of its population unemployed in recent years
than any other industrial country.
It is doubtful whether the imposition of a 3 percent tax on pay
rolls would cause employers to mechanize their plants and thereby
increase unemployment. If there had been no incentive to increased
capital outlay and reorganization of the plant previous to the pay
roll tax, even an immediate levy equal to 3 percent of pay roll
would scarcely be burdensome enough to cause employers to mechanize
in order to avoid the tax. In addition, it must be remembered that
under the Federal and State plans in this country the full pay roll
tax is imposed only gradually, so that the employer may find it
easy to absorb the burden by increased output or by reducing costs
through more efficient plant operation or other devices rather than
by increasing his outlay for machinery, which, unlike labor, involves
a permanent addition to overhead. In some industries, mechanization
is inevitable if it is more profitable; in others, it is impossible
to increase the ratio of machines
to man power, and no pay roll tax would be sufficient
incentive for further mechanization. In any event, it would appear
that only in industries in which labor costs constitute a very large
part of total expense would the payroll tax be an important
factor in stimulating mechanization.
The idea that increase in prices will result from pay roll taxes,
which will inevitably mean that fewer units are bought, assumes
a static economic system in which all things remain the same and
only prices rise. It may be true that prices will rise as a result
of unemployment compensation financed by a 3 percent tax, but, except
to a slight extent in distributive trades, the rise could not justifiably
be more than 3 percent of the total labor cost of the product. In
a dynamic economic system, when prices rise, other factors
also change. The expenditure of benefits to persons at a time when
they have no other source of income may offset the rise in prices
and result in a larger consumption of products, not a smaller.
Another frequent criticism is that the tax withdraws funds from
industry and acts as a retarding influence upon industrial
recovery. The belief that payment of contributions results in the
withdrawal of productive funds from industry rests on a misconception
of the use to which the funds will be put. Although it is true that
at the outset the funds are collected to be used 2 years hence for
the payment of benefits, in the interim the funds will be available
to retire the public debt or to purchase Federal bonds. This will
serve to release funds from public into private investment, thereby
actually aiding recovery. Expenditure of these funds in the form
of benefits later, when unemployment sets in, will serve to maintain
purchasing power at a time when industry can benefit most by their
expenditure.
Opponents of unemployment compensation also claim that unemployment
compensation interferes with the mobility of labor and prevents
an unemployed worker from leaving his locality to seek work elsewhere
even if the possibility of employment in his present locality
is small. Although some of England's ablest economists acknowledge
that unemployment compensation has prevented the prod of hunger
and destitution from forcing men to accept "any work
at any pay," they see some advantage in this very maintenance
of decent standards. Moreover, one of the principal functions of
public employment offices is to locate jobs and to render
aid in bringing the worker and the job together. The system as administered
in other countries has not only promoted labor mobility despite
many impediments but has been a potent factor in diminishing aimless
wandering about in search of work. There is no indication that it
will have any other effect here.
Another argument is that there is not in existence a sufficient
knowledge of the extent and characteristics of unemployment
to measure its incidence accurately enough for the purposes of unemployment
compensation. This is likewise true of many other hazards which
are regularly covered by ordinary insurance practices. In the course
of the depression, the losses experienced in some fields of
commercial insurance have been out of line with all expectations.
In fire insurance and workmen's compensation, the incidence of loss
is not yet predictable with any degree of exactness. Yet this is
no argument against making provision against these risks.
To sum up, unemployment compensation offers a number of advantages
to employers, employees, and the government. From the employer's
point of view, the existence of such a plan is a means of maintaining
a reserve of workers, who cannot be continuously employed, in the
various industries. It results in more stabilized markets for the
goods produced and, by removing the fear of insecurity from workers,
tends to create more efficient employees. Inevitably, it will also
result in lower taxes for relief purposes.
From the point of view of government, unemployment compensation
results in a more efficient industrial system, the removal of the
violent swings of the business cycle, a reduction in relief costs,
and the removal of many of the causes of social unrest.
To the employee, unemployment compensation means removal of
the fear of insecurity and its consequent impairment of self respect
and efficiency, and the establishment of a right to benefit when
unemployed through no fault of his own.
III- A Short History of Unemployment
Insurance in Foreign Countries
Great Britain. We have found in all quarters a
general agreement that the risk of unemployment should be insured.
Nobody has suggested to us that the principle of unemployment insurance
should be abandoned. It has been recognized by all who have appeared
before us, and we ourselves share the view, that an unemployment
insurance scheme must now be regarded as a permanent feature of
our code of social legislation.-- Report (1927) of the Unemployment
Insurance Committee, Lord Blanesburgh, Chairman, Vol. I, p. 28.
Germany. The Commission
recommends unreservedly that the relief of unemployment should
continue to be organized on an insurance basis.-- The Unemployment
Problem in Germany, Report of an Advisory Commission Appointed by
the Federal Government, 1931, p. 78.
UNEMPLOYMENT insurance is not a new phenomenon. Its history dates
back to the middle of the nineteenth century when trade unions first
began to pay benefits to workers when they were out of work. From
1890 to 1905 several cities in continental Europe established voluntary
unemployment benefit plans. The first plan of this kind was started
in 1893 in Berne, Switzerland, and was followed by similar plans
in other Swiss, German, and Italian cities. In 1901 the Belgian
city of Ghent established a system of municipal subsidies to trade
union funds. Known as the "Ghent system," it spread widely
from the beginning of the twentieth century until the World War.
In the early part of this century many provinces or cantons began
to add their subsidies to those of the cities. Some national governments
also made annual grants. At the outbreak of the World War these
voluntary systems had a considerable coverage and yielded a wide
distribution of unemployment benefits in bad years, but in no country
did they cover even half the industrial wage earners.
Following the establishment of the voluntary plans, a movement began
to develop for national unemployment insurance. As early as 1894
an attempt was made to establish a compulsory unemployment insurance
system in the Swiss canton of St. Gall, but it soon failed. The
first real achievement was made by Great Britain in 1911 when the
first national compulsory system in any country was established.
No other country followed Great Britain until 8 years later when
Italy established compulsory insurance. Germany enacted a compulsory
unemployment insurance law in 1927. Today 8 foreign countries have
national compulsory insurance systems, while the State of Queensland
in Australia and 13 Cantons of Switzerland have also adopted compulsory
insurance. In all, approximately 35,774,000 persons are so covered.
(See table 1.)
| TABLE 1. Coverage of foreign
countries with compulsory unemployment insurance laws |
|
Country 1
|
Date of law
|
Number insured
|
| Australia (Queensland) |
Oct. 18,1922 |
175,000 |
| Austria3 |
Mar. 24,1920 |
1,012,000 |
| Bulgaria |
Apr. 12,1925 |
280,000 |
| Germany |
July 15,1927 |
13,472,000 |
| Great Britain and Northern Ireland |
Dec. 16,1911 |
14,753,000 |
| Irish Free State |
Aug. 9,1920 |
380,000 |
| Italy |
Oct. 19,1919 |
4,500,000 |
| Poland |
July 18,1924 |
957,000 |
| Switzerland (13 Cantons) |
|
245,000 |
| Yugoslavia |
Dec. 15,1935 |
|
| |
|
|
| Total number insured by compulsory systems |
|
35,774,000 |
1 A compulsory law was passed in the U. S. S.
R. in 1922, but benefit payments were suspended in 1930.
2 These are the most recent figures available.
3 Although the Austrian system is in many respects similar
to unemployment insurance systems of other European countries,
it is distinguished from them by requiring a means test of
applicants for benefits.
4 Data not yet available. |
In addition, 10 countries and 12 Cantons of Switzerland with a coverage
of approximately 4,161,000 persons have voluntary systems. (See
table 2.)
| TABLE 2. Coverage of foreign
countries with voluntary unemployment insurance laws |
|
Country
|
Date of law
|
Number insured
|
| Belgium |
Dec. 30,1920 |
899,000 |
| Czechoslovakia |
July 19,1921 |
1,407,000 |
| Denmark |
Apr. 9,1907 |
375,000 |
| Finland |
Nov. 2,1917 |
15,000 |
| France |
Sept. 9,1905 |
192,000 |
| Greece |
(2) |
46,000 |
| Netherlands |
Dec. 2,1916 |
564,000 |
| Norway |
Aug. 6,1915 |
54,000 |
| Spain |
May 25,1931 |
62,000 |
| Sweden |
June 15,1934 |
240,000 |
| Switzerland (12 Cantons) 3 |
Oct. 17,1924 |
307, 000 |
| Total number insured by voluntary systems |
|
4,161,000 |
1 These are the most recent figures available.
2 There is no information available on the date of the law.
Data from "Industrial and Labor Information," Nov.
18, 1935, vol. 56, no. 7, indicates that insurance funds were
in existence in the tobacco, milling, and baking industries
and the Athens newspaper staffs.
3 Nine of these Cantons specify that communes may enforce
compulsory insurance within their borders. |
THE BRITISH SYSTEM
Of the 39,935,000 covered by unemployment insurance schemes in foreign
countries, 28,225,000 persons are covered by the compulsory systems
of Great Britain and Germany. The system originally adopted in Great
Britain in 1911 covered about 2,500,000 in a few industries; 5 years
later it was extended to 3,750,000. In 1920 it was once more extended
to cover somewhat more than 11,000,000 persons, or practically the
entire wage?earning population except farm workers and domestic
servants. In April 1936 a special scheme for agricultural labor,
covering 750,000 persons, with lower rates of contribution and benefits,
was established. Now, all employable persons, except domestic servants,
nonmanual workers earning more than £250 (1,250) a year, and
some few categories of regularly employed persons, are insured against
unemployment. The British system provides for equal contributions
from employers, employees, and the Government. Unlike the German
or the American systems, the contributions are flat amounts varying
with age and sex of the individuals. They amount to 9 pence a week
for men (about 18 cents) and 8 pence for women (about 16 cents).'
Weekly benefits are also flat sums and amount to 17 shillings for
men ($4.25) and 15 shillings ($3.75) for women, between the ages
of 21 and 65. Lower contribution and benefit rates are provided
for younger people. Family allowances of 9 shillings ($2.25) for
a dependent adult and 3 shillings (0.75) for each dependent child
are provided. Benefits are payable for 26 weeks in a year, and special
provisions allow additional benefits for persons with good employment
records.
Since its inception in 1911, the British unemployment insurance
system has been amended frequently. The most serious of the changes
resulted in the payment of benefits beyond the statutory periods
provided in the National Insurance Act. These "transitional
payments" or "extended benefits", as they have been
variously called, paid in periods of severe unemployment to persons
who had exhausted their rights to benefit, resulted in the creation
of a large governmental debt to the fund which amounted in March
1932 to £115,000,000, for the fund was then carrying liabilities
far in excess of the amount it was designed to cover. The system
had been combined, for all practical purposes, with a relief system,
since persons who should have applied for relief to the Poor Law
Administration continued to receive benefits under the insurance
scheme. Whether this can be construed as criticism of the insurance
system is debatable. It has been stated that England avoided a revolution
in 1921 when it built up the self?respect of the large army of jobless
men through its program of unemployment insurance. Instead of being
recipients of charity they became members of a national program
of security. William Beveridge, one of the best known authorities
on British unemployment insurance, has said:
1. The present value of the pound is slightly less than $5. A conversion
rate of $5 for a pound sterling has been used.
"The main result of recent experience both during and after
the war has been to confirm the value of contributory unemployment
insurance as a measure for preventing distress through unemployment.
In simplicity, generality, flexibility, and cheapness of administration,
it is unsurpassed. The British scheme, put to the test under circumstances
of extreme and unnecessary difficulty, has stood the strain with
remarkable success."
With the passing of the worst of the depression in 1934, a new law
was enacted which retained the contributory system for the regularly
unemployed, but, profiting by the post?war experience, provided
for the creation of a new unemployment assistance system, applicable
to all able?bodied wage earners, including agricultural labor and
domestic servants between 16 and 65, who were to receive assistance
on the basis of need, after having drawn insurance benefits for
the maximum duration. This was not a poor?relief system but was
to cover the transitional stage between the exhaustion of insurance
benefits and the receipt of poor relief.
The 1934 act placed the insurance scheme on a self?sustaining basis.
The debt incurred by advancing sums to discharge the liabilities
of the unemployment fund was to be amortized by half?yearly payments
of £2,500,000 ($12,500,000), and only statutory benefits were
to be paid from the fund. Contributions are now carrying more than
the liabilities of the fund require, leaving a surplus. The debt
is being amortized. During 1933, £4,070,000 ($20,350,000)
was repaid on the principal. By September 1936 the debt had been
reduced to £104,741,000 ($523,705,000). Receipts of the unemployment
fund for the calendar year 1935 were £64,771,147 (323,855,735).
Expenditures amounted to £53,848,522 ($269,242,610), of which
£44,055,000 ($220,275,000) were paid for unemployment benefits.
The net balance in the fund at the end of 1935 was nearly £21,450,000
($107,250,000). Effective July 1936, contributions were reduced
1 penny a week on behalf of adults 18 years and above.
THE GERMAN SYSTEM
The German unemployment insurance system, established
in 1927, differs from the British in a number of important ways.
Contributions are paid only by employers and employees and, instead
of flat amounts, vary with wages. These rates have changed since
the first schemes, but since 1930 have amounted to 6y2 percent of
wages not exceeding 300 marks a month ($120) and are payable in
equal shares by employers and employees. The benefit is not a flat
sum to all classes of workers but is graded according to wages received,
with additional benefits for dependents. In 1932 the one benefit
scale for the entire country was changed to three scales, varying
with the size of the community. Maximum weekly benefits range from
4.50 to 11.70 reichsmarks ($1.80 to $4.68) for a person with no
dependents, and from 5.70 to 27.90 reichsmarks ($2.28 to $11.16)
for a person with one to six dependents. Benefits are paid for 20
weeks a year, but after 6 weeks the benefit is based upon a needs
test.
When the German plan was established, 16 years after the first British
act, it was felt that some arrangement should be made to take care
of the employable population who would exhaust their rights to benefit
and still be unable to obtain employment. To supplement the insurance
system, provision was made for establishing an emergency benefit
system in times of depression financed four?fifths by the Federal
Government and one fifth by the local government. Payments from
this fund were to be made to a person who did not qualify for insurance
benefits or who had exhausted his rights to them, only after a test
of need. This test, however, was to be less strict than that applied
for local poor relief. The duration of emergency benefits was fixed
by executive order from time to time. These benefits were payable
up to a period of 38 weeks or, in exceptional cases for persons
over 40 years old, for a period of 51 weeks. If the worker . remained
unemployed after having drawn the maximum amount of ordinary and
emergency benefits, his only resort was to poor relief. Originally
emergency benefits were to be
2 The present value of the mark is 40 cents
financed from the general funds of the Federal Government, the local
government sharing in the cost to the extent of one?fifth. With
the onset of the depression it became necessary to levy, in addition
to the regular contributions to the insurance fund, a wage tax to
help the Federal Government bear the cost of these emergency benefits.
In 1933, however, largely as a result of political considerations,
the source of income for emergency benefits was changed, and workers'
and employers' contributions carried that burden as well as that
of the insurance scheme.
The German unemployment insurance system, like the British, has
also had to borrow from the Government. Industrial conditions were
bad in 1929, and in 1931 an even more severe financial crisis faced
the country, brought about by the withdrawal of foreign credit,
large reparations payments, and reduced export trade. Uncertainty
concerning the political stability and financial solvency of the
country created a panic and resulted in curtailments of the protection
given, by decreasing benefit rates and increasing the waiting period.
As a result of the economies effected, the year ending March 31,
1933, showed a surplus in the resources of the Federal insurance
fund. Not only is the fund now on a self?sustaining basis, but it
is also carrying the full burden of emergency benefits, a risk it
was never designed to carry.
Throughout the vicissitudes of the last decade, when all industrial
countries of the world faced mass unemployment and a number of them
political upheavals, their unemployment insurance systems have not
been abandoned. In fact, the number of countries with unemployment
insurance systems is definitely increasing. Although a number of
systems acquired some of the aspects of relief, recently there has
been a return [to first principles; contributory unemployment insurance
is recognized as designed to protect workers in periods of "normal"
unemployment and as unable to care for the entire period of unemployment
accompanying a serious depression. As such, it performs its proper
role-the first line of defense?against the unemployment problem.
IV- The Development of Unemployment Compensation
in the United States
It took many years for this young and vigorous country of ours
to realize that its frontiers would finally disappear, that a time
would come when individual initiative and enterprise would not automatically
result in a secure economic existence, that millions of our fellow
citizens would come to economic grief through no fault of their
own, and that we, as a government, if we were to survive, must provide
these individuals with something more than private charity or emergency
relief.-- John G. Winant, New York, April 25, 1936.
ALTHOUGH the depression increased interest in unemployment compensation,
it had been established in the United States on a voluntary basis
to some extent long before. As elsewhere, its beginnings date back
to the out-of-work benefit systems undertaken by the trade-unions.
Although the first union plan in this country was established as
early as 1831, less than 100,000 union members were covered by unemployment
benefit plans in 1934. Several unions, chiefly in the garment trades,
reached agreements with the employing firms which included provisions
for guaranteed employment and unemployment benefit plans. At their
height these joint plans covered slightly more than 65,000 workers.
Many of these have since been abandoned. Recurrent depressions in
the last 20 years also stimulated a few companies to initiate voluntary
systems. In 1934 they affected less than 70,000 employees, however,
and more than half of the employees covered were in a single company.
Altogether, experience with these plans indicates the inability
of voluntary efforts to cope with the problem of unemployment.
EARLY LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
Legislative efforts for unemployment compensation have lagged behind
the voluntary efforts of employers, trade unions, and employers
and employees acting jointly. Following the depression of
1914-15, the first attempt to obtain an unemployment compensation
law was made in the United States, when a bill was introduced in
the Massachusetts legislature in 1916. The bill was modeled on the
British act of 1911 in that it required contributions from employees,
employers, and the State government, but even at that early date
preparation was made for future developments by relating contributions
and benefits to wages. No action was taken and it was not until
the depression of 1920-22 that once more unemployment compensation
bills were introduced in the State legislatures of Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Only one of these, the bill introduced in New York in 1921, followed
the 1916 Massachusetts bill. The others were modeled after the Huber
bill, drafted by Professor John R. Commons of the University of
Wisconsin and first introduced in the Wisconsin legislature
in 1921. This bill applied the principles of American experience
with workmen's compensation to the relief of unemployment. The cost
was to be borne entirely by the employer, in order to force him
to stabilize his employment. The insurance was to be carried
with a mutual company under the control of a compensation
insurance board which was to classify industries according to their
risk. In modified forms the bill was introduced at every meeting
of the Wisconsin legislature until an unemployment compensation
bill was finally passed.
Little real interest developed during the period of comparative
prosperity, but with the onset of the depression interest again
quickened. In 1931 alone, 52 bills for compulsory unemployment compensation
were introduced in 17 States (See table 3.) These were based largely
on the Wisconsin unemployment reserve plan. Various State commissions
in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other States
have studied the problem.
On January 29, 1932, after more than 2 years of severe depression,
a law was passed in Wisconsin. Its passage greatly stimulated thought
about unemployment compensation. Based on the theory that
the employer was responsible for unemployment, it assessed
the entire cost on him on the assumption that if he bore the cost
of the system, he would make every effort to stabilize employment
and thereby prevent unemployment. The law provided for the establishment
of individual reserve funds, a provision that did not appear in
the original Huber bill. Contributions of each
| TABLE 3.-State bills providing
for compulsory systems of unemployment compensation in selected
years, 1916-36 |
|
Year
|
Number of States
|
Number of bills
|
| 1916 |
1 |
1 |
| 1921 |
3 |
4 |
| 1923 |
2 |
3 |
| 1925 |
2 |
2 |
| 1927 |
4 |
5 |
| 1929 |
5 |
5 |
| 1931 |
17 |
52 |
| 1933 |
23 |
83 |
| 1935 |
33 |
102 |
| 1936 |
32 |
134 |
employer were to be kept separate and available for benefits only
to his unemployed workers. The Governors' Interstate Commission
on Unemployment Insurance, on the initiation of President Roosevelt,
then Governor of New York State, early in 1931 reported in favor
of a bill very similar to the Wisconsin law. This commission consisted
of representatives of New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. The American Association for
Labor Legislation, first in 1930 and later in 1933, prepared an
"American plan" which, like the Wisconsin law, laid its
emphasis on reserves rather than insurance and on prevention
rather than relief, although it provided for industry reserves rather
than individual employer reserves.
Although the Wisconsin law greatly influenced legislation in this
country, equally important was the report of the Ohio advantage
in competing with employers in States that had no laws. Since this
was in effect an interstate problem, its solution required Federal
action.
Once the committee was convinced that the problem of unemployment
compensation was the direct concern of the Federal Government, the
next approach was to determine what the role of the Federal Government
should be.
Should it establish a compulsory national system of unemployment
compensation or should the Federal Government confine its activity
to promoting State action and developing a Federal State cooperative
system? A Federal plan which would set up a complete system for
the administration of unemployment compensation specifying all benefit
conditions had much to recommend it. It offered a chance for the
pooling of the risk of unemployment over an area wider than could
be possible under State action. It would have made possible
the maintenance of a fund on a more strictly actuarial basis, since
the paucity of State statistical information would necessitate pooling
all available data to obtain anything like a sound factual background.
It would have given uniformity of protection to all employees in
the United States exposed to the same risks of unemployment and
an easy and readily available way of handling the problem of interstate
employees, a problem impossible of solution by individual State
action alone and difficult even in a Federal-State system. Such
plan would probably have the approval of the large employers of
the country whose operations cut across State lines an who would
be definitely opposed to the necessity for fun tinning under many
different State regulations.
On the other hand, against these considerations was weighed the
claim that an exclusively Federal system would result in a centralization
of administrative functions which might paralyze action. There was
the fear that, in such set-up, bureaucratic methods might flourish.
In the absence of experience with unemployment compensation in t
country, it was thought that it would be desirable to all wide latitude
for experimentation, in the hope that this would provide uniformity
where essential and diversity where desired. This, it was felt,
could best be accomplished by a Federal-State cooperative system
under which the Federal Government would assume the leadership by
removing the disadvantages in interstate competition which would
have resulted from purely State legislation. Although recognizing
the need for uniformity in State action, it was felt that such uniformity
could best be accomplished through voluntary State action encouraged
by the Federal Government.
Two types of Federal-State cooperation were given consideration:
a subsidy plan under which the Federal Government would grant
funds to the States if they passed laws which complied with definite
Federal standards, and a credit-offset plan under which a Federal
tax would be levied on all employers and a credit against
the tax allowed to all employers who contributed to State unemployment
compensation funds. Both these Federal-State cooperative systems
contemplated that the Federal Government would impose a uniform
excise tax on pay rolls and that the States would pass unemployment
compensation laws. Under the subsidy plan the entire amount of Federal
tax was to be collected by the Federal Government and a Federal
grant distributed to States enacting unemployment compensation laws
which complied with standards prescribed in the Federal act. The
advocates of the subsidy procedure argued that the standards in
the Federal act would result in uniform State legislation; that
it would provide a means for uniform recording of statistical experience
and other information necessary for national study of the problem
and for benefit payments, regardless of the workers' mobility. It
was felt, however, that the States might constantly look to the
Federal Government to increase the grant since they had no part
in the collection of contributions or the Federal tax and
that the State laws would be too dependent on Federal legislation.
The second type of Federal-State system was the credit offset plan,
providing for a Federal tax levied on the pay rolls of all employers
and a credit up to 90 percent of the tax allowed for contributions
paid by employers into a State unemployment compensation fund. This
contemplated that the Federal Government would not attempt to regulate
in detail what the States should include in their unemployment compensation
laws. It would not set up a Federal system of unemployment compensation
but would make it possible for the States to pass laws. It would
permit complete freedom to the States as to the type of State law
to be adopted, the length of the qualifying period, benefit rates
and duration, waiting periods, claims procedure, and all the other
substantive provisions; but at the same time it would provide for
an equal burden on all employers by the imposition of a Federal
pay-roll tax. Uniformity was also to be obtained to the extent that
contributions could be expended solely for benefit purposes
and by the deposit of State funds in the Federal Treasury. Like
the subsidy plan, it provided for Federal supervision, but permitted
far more local responsibility through State collection of
contributions, payment of benefits, and development of all the details
of the law in the States, thus utilizing the traditional American
methods and local machinery in the administration of labor laws.
Although the subsidy plan could operate only if it received an adequate
annual appropriation by Congress, the credit-offset device provided
that, since contributions were collected directly by the State,
administration would not depend so completely on Federal action.
In this connection, it was assumed that there would be no pressure
for increased expenditures by the Federal Government since benefits
came solely from contributions paid into the State fund.
The tax-offset method was finally incorporated in the unemployment
compensation provisions of the economic security bill which was
introduced by Senator Wagner and Representatives Lewis and Doughton
on January 17, 1935. The bills were referred in the House to the
Committee on Ways and Means and in the Senate to the Committee on
Finance. Hearings were begun almost immediately. Testimony was received
from labor-union officials, industrialists, prominent citizens,
and experts in the field, and careful and prolonged consideration
was given the bill. The volume of hearings ran to 1,141 pages in
the House and 1,354 pages in the Senate. In a revised form the social
security bill came up for consideration in the House of Representatives
on April 11 under a rule permitting complete freedom of amendment.
Debate lasted until April 19 when the bill was passed by a vote
of 372 to 33. Following passage in the House, the Senate Finance
Committee considered it during 2 full weeks in May and reported
it favorably, with amendments, on May 20. The Senate debated the
bill from June 14 to June 19, when it was passed by a vote of 77
to 6. In both Houses, an overwhelming majority of both parties supported
the measure. Following a period in which both Houses tried to adjust
their differences, the conference committee's report was adopted
in both Houses without even a roll call, in the House on August
8 and in the Senate on August 9. On August 14, 1935, the President
approved the Social Security Act, which became effective immediately.
V- Provisions of the Social Security Act
Relating to Unemployment Compensation
It seems absurd that anyone today should question the need
for unemployment insurance laws. The question of public policy is
now one of the particular type of law to be adopted. The Security
Act has provided an adequate foundation upon which to build greater
protection against the risks of industry for the American people.
It will in a short time do away with the worst features of our antiquated
relief methods and provide for our citizens in a manner worthy of
a rich and generous nation.-- William Haber, from broadcast
speech, October 25, 1936: The Social Security Act, A Discussion
of Some of the Criticisms.
THE passage of the Social Security Act marked the beginning
of a new era in our social policy. The act, which is divided into
eleven titles, attempts to offer protection against many of the
major hazards of modern economic society. Federal aid is granted
to the States for the needy aged, for dependent children, for the
blind, for maternal and child welfare, for vocational rehabilitation,
and for public health work. A national system of old-age benefits
is provided. The Federal Government for the first time, on
a Nation-wide scale, made an effort to aid in providing some reasonable
degree of economic security during unemployment-other than
on a relief basis-for those who ordinarily were employed. Titles
III and IX of the act deal with unemployment compensation.
They do not set up a Federal system of unemployment compensation
but make it possible for the individual States to establish their
own plans of unemployment compensation by removing the major
obstacle of interstate competition. Title IX levies a pay-roll tax
of 1 percent in 1936, 2 percent in 1937, and 3 percent in 1938 ,
on employers of eight or more persons. Certain employments are excepted
from this tax, such as services in the nature of agricultural labor,
domestic service in a private home, shipping on the navigable waters
of the United States, service in the employment of one's immediate
family, Government service Federal, State, and local-and service
for certain agencies operated on a nonprofit basis. The tax is based
upon the wages payable for services not excepted above and is collected
by the Bureau of Internal Revenue of the Treasury Department. One
of the results of the tax levied equally upon employers throughout
the country is to remove a major obstacle to State action, for all
employers are affected substantially the same, whether or not the
State passes an unemployment compensation law.
Against the Federal tax, the employers may credit the amounts which
they contribute to unemployment compensation funds under a
State law approved by the Social Security Board, but such credit
may not exceed 90 percent of the Federal tax. In other words, if
a State passes an unemployment compensation law that is approved
by the Social Security Board, the employers of the State instead
of paying the entire Federal tax, pay only 10 percent into the Federal
Treasury, while the rest remains in the State fund for the payment
of benefits to the eligible unemployed population of the State.
In order to be approved by the Social Security Board, the State
unemployment compensation law must include provisions that
(1) All benefits shall be paid through public employment offices,
or such other agencies as the Board may approve;
(2) No benefits shall be paid for unemployment occurring within
2 years after the first day with respect to which contributions
are first required;
(3) All contributions to the State fund shall be immediately transferred
to the unemployment trust fund of the United States;
(4) Money withdrawn from the unemployment trust fund shall be used
only for the payment of benefits;
(5) Benefits shall not be denied any otherwise eligible individual
for refusing to accept any work vacant due directly to a trade dispute;
if the wages, hours, or other conditions are substantially below
those prevailing for similar work in the locality; if as a condition
of being employed a worker has to resign from or refrain from joining
a labor organization or would be required to join a company union;
(6) The State law must provide that no vested rights are created
which prevent modification or repeal of the State law.
These requirements do not prescribe the fundamental provisions of
a State unemployment compensation law but are intended merely to
define a genuine unemployment compensation law as distinguished
from relief and to safeguard the solvency of the fund and prohibit
use of the funds to lower labor standards. Definitions of who shall
contribute to the State fund, the amount and duration of benefits,
eligibility requirements, and similar questions, are all left entirely
to the discretion of the States in formulating their own laws.
Every genuine unemployment compensation law provides that benefits
shall be paid through public employment offices in order that public
control shall attend the payment of benefits, and only persons genuinely
unemployed and unable to obtain work shall receive benefits.
The requirement that a 2-year period elapse between the time contributions
begin and benefits are first paid was inserted because it
was necessary to provide a period for the accumulation of funds
before benefits began. The imposition of a 1-percent tax the first
year, a 2-percent tax the second, and a 3-percent tax the third
year and thereafter, made it probable that most States would require
a contribution rate equal to only nine-tenths of the Federal tax,
thus providing for the full credit allowed to employers and at the
same time not assessing them for any greater amount than that which
the employers in other States without unemployment compensation
laws must pay to the Federal Government.
The provision that contributions be deposited in the Federal Treasury
was designed to make these funds readily available to stabilize
employment and to assure their absolute security.
If their investment were in the hands of varying State agencies
operating under varying State fiscal requirements, they might be
thrown on the market and liquidated when a depression began and
drains on the fund became great. The effect on the financial structure
of the country might be so serious as to cause greater unemployment.
The requirement that money withdrawn from the unemployment
trust fund be used solely in the payment of unemployment benefits
was designed to make certain that the State laws were genuine unemployment
compensation laws and that the funds would not be dissipated for
other purposes.
The costs of administration of the State laws are not paid from
the contributions of employers and employees but, according to title
III of the Social Security Act, are paid by the Federal Government
out of the general funds of the Treasury if the State laws are properly
administered.
In order to receive grants for administrative purposes, the State
laws must be approved by the Social Security Board under title IX
and also provide:
(1) Such methods of administration as are calculated to insure full
payment of benefits when due;
(2) Opportunity for a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal
for all whose claims to benefits have been denied; and
(3) Full and complete reports to the Social Security Board on the
activities under the State laws, and requested information
to other Federal agencies engaged in the administration of public
works or assistance.
These conditions were designed to secure an efficient administration
by the several States and to assure applicants for benefits that
they would be given every opportunity to state their case fairly
before an impartial board. Reports from the State agency to the
Social Security Board were deemed necessary if the Board was to
keep in touch with the developments in State programs and know whether
their laws were being properly administered. If unemployment compensation
was to be secondary to stabilized employment, there would have to
be some active cooperation between the State unemployment compensation
administration and other agencies also engaged in doing their part
in the solution of the unemployment problem.
The State law may create a State pooled system in which all the
contributions are commingled and available for benefit purposes
to any employee in the State, or it may provide for individual employer
accounts where contributions from each employer are available for
benefits only to his own employees, or for a combination of these
two plans. It may authorize individual accounts under guaranteed
employment plans where the employer guarantees his employees at
least 30 hours of work a week for 40 weeks in the year. It may provide
for scaling of contributions according to the benefit experience
of individual employers or industries contributing to the pooled
fund. Under any type of plan, if reduced contributions are permitted
by State law under prescribed safeguards, it will eventually be
possible for employers to secure a credit not only for the amount
of contributions which they actually make under State laws but also
within certain limits for the amount by which they were permitted
to reduce their contributions because of their good experience record.
In order for employers to benefit by these provisions of the Social
Security Act and avoid paying the entire Federal tax for 1936, the
State in which they operate must pass an unemployment compensation
law which is approved before December 31, 1936, under title
IX, and must collect contributions thereunder before April
1, 1937. If it fails to do so, the employers of the State will pay
the entire Federal tax into the Federal Treasury, and none of the
proceeds will be available for the payment of benefits to their
unemployed workers.
Wisconsin was the first State to pass an unemployment compensation
law, but no other State followed for 3 years, until it was certain
that some action in the field would be taken by the Federal Government.
Utah, Washington, New York, New Hampshire, California, and Massachusetts
enacted State laws in 1935 before the Social Security Act
was
1 The Utah law, passed on Mar. 25, 1935, was repealed and a new
law passed in 1936.
2 The Washington law, which had been approved by the Social Security
Board under title IX, was declared invalid by the State supreme
court on Sept. 15, 1936, because it was dependent upon the enactment
by Congress of the "Wagner-Doughton bill", which was never
passed.
| TABLE 4.-Thirty-six State
Unemployment Compensation Laws approved under title IX of
the Social Security Act [As of Dec. 31, 1936] |
|
State
|
Date law enacted
|
Date of approval
|
| Alabama |
Sept.14,1935 |
Dec. 31,1935 |
| Arizona |
Dec. 3,1936 |
Dec. 22,1936 |
| California |
June 25,1935 |
Dec. 27,1935 |
| Colorado |
Nov. 20,1936 |
Nov. 27,1936 |
| Connecticut |
Nov. 30,1936 |
Dec. 8,1936 |
| District of Columbia |
Aug. 28,1935 |
Nov. 15,1935 |
| Idaho |
Aug. 6,1936 |
Sept. 1,1936 |
| Indiana |
Mar. 18,1936 |
Apr. 18,1936 |
| Iowa |
Dec. 24,1936 |
Dec. 29,1936 |
| Kentucky |
Dec. 29,1936 |
Dec. 31,1936 |
| Louisiana |
June 29,1936 |
Nov. 20,1936 |
| Maine |
Dec. 18,1936 |
Dec. 24,1936 |
| Maryland |
Dec. 17,1936 |
Dec. 22,1936 |
| Massachusetts |
Aug. 12,1935 |
Feb. 4,1936 |
| Michigan |
Dec. 24,1936 |
Dec. 29,1936 |
| Minnesota |
Dec. 24,1936 |
Dec. 29,1936 |
| Mississippi |
Mar. 23,1936 |
May 20,1936 |
| New Hampshire |
May 29,1935 |
Dec. 13,1935 |
| New Jersey |
Dec. 22,1936 |
Dec. 24,1936 |
| New Mexico |
Dec. 16,1936 |
Dec. 19,1936 |
| New York |
Apr. 25,1935 |
Jan. 24,1936 |
| North Carolina |
Dec. 16,1936 |
Dec. 19,1936 |
| Ohio |
Dec. 17,1936 |
Dec. 22,1936 |
| Oklahoma |
Dec. 12,1936 |
Dec. 19,1936 |
| Oregon |
Nov. 15,1935 |
Dec. 23,1935 |
| Pennsylvania |
Dec. 5,1936 |
Dec. 8,1936 |
| Rhode Island |
May 5,1936 |
June 8,1936 |
| South Carolina |
June 6,1936 |
July 22,1936 |
| South Dakota |
Dec. 24,1936 |
Dec. 29,1936 |
| Tennessee |
Dec. 18,1936 |
Dec. 22,1936 |
| Texas |
Oct. 27,1936 |
Nov. 5,1936 |
| Utah |
Aug. 29,1936 |
Sept.15,1936 |
| Vermont |
Dec. 22,1936 |
Dec. 29,1936 |
| Virginia |
Dec. 18,1936 |
Dec. 19,1936 |
| West Virginia |
Dec. 17,1936 |
Dec. 22,1936 |
| Wisconsin |
Jan. 29,1932 |
Nov. 27,1935 |
actually passed but when it was clearly a matter of months or days
before the act would be through Congress. Since its passage, two
States and the District of Columbia passed laws in 193 5 and 28
in 1936.
By the end of 1936, 35 States and the District of Columbia had passed
unemployment compensation laws which had been approved by the Social
Security Board. (See table 4.) In all they cover about 18,000,000
persons. These State laws vary in many ways. Generally speaking,
an unemployed worker covered by these laws, after a specified waiting
period, will receive a benefit of 50 percent of his full-time weekly
wage not exceeding a weekly maximum of $15 for 15 or 16 weeks a
year. But since each unemployed worker must register at a public
employment office, jobs may be found for the unemployed persons
before the end of the waiting period, or at least before the end
of the period during which he is entitled to benefits, and the weekly
benefit will follow only if a job is unavailable.
VI- Major Considerations in Unemployment Compensation
The objective of unemployment insurance can be defined or described
as an effort to secure the wage worker and his dependents, deprived
of an opportunity to work and earn a living?to secure him not necessarily
against any losses, but against suffering and deprivation, to enable
him to preserve during his period of unemployment, some standard
of living on a level of health and decency and to accomplish this
aim without any degradation, with as little injury to his ego and
self?respect as possible; and not only to grant that to the workman
unemployed, but to give to the employed workman a sense of security
that that would be done. -- I. M. Rubinow in The Quest For Security
(1934), p. 419.
THE Social Security Act as described in the preceding chapter establishes
a Federal?State cooperative system of unemployment compensation
which leaves to the States the power and initiative of passing unemployment
compensation legislation and permits them wide latitude with regard
to the type of plan they wish to establish. The act, however, offers
encouragement to the States to pass State unemployment compensation
laws which meet certain minimum requirements that are the essential
criteria of a bona?fide unemployment compensation measure as distinguished
from relief. If a State law contains such provisions and safeguards
for proper administration, the Social Security Board agrees to pay
all its proper administrative expenses.
Except for these requirements, the Federal Government does not restrict
the freedom of the States to set up any type of unemployment compensation
system they desire. Basic and fundamental policy decisions are left
entirely in the hands of the State. It must designate the groups
to be protected and those to be excluded. It is free to add or not
to add employee contributions to those required from the employers.
It is also free to make provision for State contributions to the
system if it so desires, although only 1 of the 36 laws enacted
as late as December 31, 1936, has done so. Likewise, it determines
its own benefit rates, waiting period, amount and duration of benefits,
the conditions under which the unemployed covered individuals may
receive benefits, and the administrative arrangements necessary
for the operation of the system. These are the principal problems
confronting the framers of unemployment compensation laws. These
problems have to be resolved by every State wishing to enact unemployment
compensation legislation.
WHO SHALL BE COVERED?
Since no type of unemployment compensation system can attempt to
offer protection to the entire working population, the groups to
be included and excluded must be definitely specified in the law.
An unemployment compensation plan can cover only persons ordinarily
employed by others. Selfemployed persons, such as farmers and farm
tenants, business and professional , men, are obviously outside
the scope of unemployment compensation protection and are covered
in no system in existence. Although there are no basic reasons for
the exclusion of maritime employment, agricultural labor, and domestic
service, anticipated administrative difficulties have led to their
exclusion in the Social Security Act and in almost all the State
laws. This reason also accounts for the exclusion of workers attached
to small concerns, although there is no precedent in European experience
for such an exclusion. While the Social Security Act levies a tax
on employers of 8 or more employees, thus covering all employers
actively competing across State lines, 10 of the State laws passed
include smaller employers, and 4 others include all employers. The
States covered these small employers because, while they were too
small to compete with employers outside the State, they obviously
compete with employers within the State, and covering them would,
therefore, promote more equal competition. There is every possibility
that employees of smaller firms will, in the not too distant future
be included among the persons covered in the Social Security Act
and all the State laws, as experience in administration is developed.
Many of these smaller employers will wish to be covered because,
when unemployment compensation is payable, workers will try to avoid
employment in noncovered occupations, and employers who are not
subject will be at a considerable disadvantage in hiring labor.
To cover smaller employers will greatly increase certain administrative
expenses because the number of subject employers will be increased
out of proportion to the increase in the number of employees covered.
On the other hand, a reduction in the minimum size of establishments
will considerably decrease the difficulty and expense of discovering
which employers are subject and will decrease the possibilities
of evading the law.
Persons engaged in the employ of State governments were excluded
from the Federal tax for constitutional reasons. Employment by members
of the immediate family was excluded because it opens up the possibility
of collusion in falsely reporting employment. Employees of religious,
charitable, and educational institutions all could readily come
within the compass of an unemployment compensation system but were
excluded from the Federal tax on the ground that by established
precedent organizations of these kinds are generally exempted from
taxes. Most of these employment exclusions have been copied in the
State laws.
WHO SHALL CONTRIBUTE?
One of the unemployment compensation problems that has caused the
greatest discussion in this country is who shall contribute to the
fund?employers alone, or employers and employees jointly? Or shall
the State government, too, pay a regular contribution, as in Great
Britain?
Although the District of Columbia unemployment compensation law
provides for a government contribution there seems to be little
sentiment in this country generally for such regular governmental
contributions. Rather the feeling has been that employers alone,
or jointly with employees, should bear the cost of unemployment
compensation benefits, leaving to governmental funds the problem
of financing relief costs c and the costs of administering the unemployment
compensation laws.
The argument in favor of employer contributions only is based on
the theory that the employer is responsible for unemployment, and
that, by assessing the cost on him, the burden is placed where it
rightly belongs and becomes an incentive to stabilize operations
and thereby decrease the unemployment in his factory. Employees,
too, argue against employee contributions, but on the grounds that,
since employer contributions will probably be passed on to employees
through increased prices, they should not pay for benefits in two
separate ways. They argue, too, that, even though many of them remain
employed, they will bear the brunt of slackening business through
decreased wage rates and fewer hours of work per week and should
not have to bear a double burden, aid that, after all, they are
paying for some unemployment since they only receive half their
wages as benefits.
The advocates of joint employer-employee contributions fall into
two groups: employers who feel that employees should also be taxed
for benefits for themselves, and students of the problem who believe
that employee contributions will lead to higher rates of benefit,
that only by actually contributing will employees obtain a measure
of control over the system, and that if employees actually contribute
they will take an active part in husbanding the resources of the
system, by preventing raids on the public treasury and by discouraging
malingering. They feel, too, that employee contributions remove
any tinge of charity from the compensation system and prevent criticism
on the ground that such payments are relief. Ten of the thirty?six
unemployment compensation laws that have been passed require contributions
from employees.
WHAT TYPE OF FUND SHALL BE ESTABLISHED?
Perhaps the most controversial problem in the financing of an unemployment
compensation law is whether all the contributions shall be pooled
into one fund or whether there shall be some recognition of the
different unemployment risks in different plants or industries,
and adjustments be permitted accordingly. Where the major emphasis
is on protection, as in the British and most of the State laws,
the tendency has been to pool all contributions, but where prevention
is the main objective, as in Wisconsin, the contributions of each
employer are available for benefits only to his employees. None
of the European countries has provided a separate account for each
employer's contributions, although occasionally some compromise
between pooling of contributions and individual reserves has been
made. The 1920 law in Great Britain allowed industries to contract
out of the pooled procedure and set up their own separate industrial
plans if they fulfilled certain requirements, but this provision
was soon repealed. The framers of the German law, with the advantage
of more than a decade of British experience before them, provided
for pooling of contributions on a regional basis.
The advocates of the employer?reserve type of plan, in placing their
emphasis on the stabilization of employment, feel that, since the
employer is, to a considerable extent, responsible for the unemployment
of his plant, he will do everything in his power to prevent that
unemployment if he has to pay for it. The principal disadvantage
in this plan is that it gives employees in companies with the greatest
unemployment the least protection, since benefits must be scaled
down to the resources of the fund. The wide variations in the risk
of unemployment between companies will undoubtedly result in the
inability of a large number of funds to pay any, or more than very
inadequate, benefits. To assure protection to the employees affected,
it will be necessary to raise the rates of contribution in the very
companies least able to meet these increased costs.
Those who advocate pooling of contributions maintain that the important
thing in building up an unemployment compensation fund is to provide
protection against unemployment, leaving to other measures the problem
of stabilizing industrial operations and of thereby preventing unemployment.
It is contended that the possible reductions in contributions will
be too small to provide much incentive to employers to attempt stabilization;
that other factors in the costs of production, such as changes in
style and prices, far outweigh any savings which can be gained by
stabilizing employment. Since our factual information about unemployment
is still far from adequate in this country, the broadest possible
basis for covering the risk of unemployment, it is
argued, will yield the greatest amount of protection. Experience
during the past decade suggests that most of the unemployment is
beyond the power of the individual employer to control. In fact,
it has been demonstrated that stabiliza
tion in one firm may cause fluctuations in employment in the rest
of industry.
Most of the 32 States whose laws provide for a pooling of all funds
include some provision for merit rating in the future, for the scaling
of contributions to the unemployment risk of the plant or industry.
By so doing, they feel that they have incorporated the best reason
for the pooled procedure equal protection for all workers covered
by the system with the major advantage of employer reserves, an
incentive for stabilizing employment.
States may, consistent with the Social Security Act, provide either
employer?reserve funds, pooled funds, or combinations of these two
types. In addition, employers, under the Social Security Act, may
adopt systems of guaranteed employment which guarantee in advance
30 hours of wages for each of 40 calendar weeks in 12 months for
all employees in one or more establishments of an employer, who
must give security satisfactory to the State agency affected for
the fulfillment of such guaranty.
Before the depression, guaranteed employment plans had been adopted
by several employers in this country who had
stabilized their employment. Recently, a number of employers under
the Wisconsin law established such plans, but experience with them
was so unsatisfactory that all of them have since abandoned their
plans. The difficulties involved in guaranteeing work to all the
employees of an employer and the inflexibility of the arrangements
made them unsatisfactory to both employers and employees. Employers
who at one time felt that they would be able to stabilize their
employment and thereby avoid the need of paying unemployment benefits
have as a result of the recent depression abandoned their plans
and are no longer such strong advocates of employment guaranty plans.
WHAT KIND OF UNEMPLOYMENT SHALL BE COMPENSATED?
Decision concerning the type of unemployment to be covered must
involve a choice as to whether the plan shall apply only to total
unemployment or whether it will include benefits for partial unemployment,
seasonal unemployment, and unemployment during depressions. In this
country total unemployment has consistently been defined as total
lack of work or wages for a week, partial unemployment as employment
at less than full time in which the earnings for the week bear a
certain relationship to the benefit the individual would have received
if totally unemployed. All the State laws, except the five which
limit their benefits to fulltime unemployment, make some such provision
for partial unemployment.
If seasonal unemployment is treated separately, decision must be
made as to whether benefits are to be paid for unemployment incurred
in the usual slack season or only in the usual busy period. Foreign
experience indicates a trend in the latter direction, for unless
this course is followed the workers in seasonal industries would
draw a larger proportion of the benefits annually than would other
workers who might become unemployed in other than seasonal industries.
The provision in the Social Security Act covering only employers
who during some 20 different weeks employed eight or more workers
tends to exclude certain seasonal employments. Most of the State
laws have no separate provision covering seasonal employments, but
ten?????? give the commission power to determine special benefit
rates and eligibility for benefit for seasonal industries.
The unemployment compensation system cannot provide for unemployment
continuing over abnormally long periods of time, that is, the unemployment
that comes with cyclical depressions, although it is intended to
ward off depressions by the payment of benefits in the regularly
recurring periods of unemployment attendant upon the ordinary operations
of business activity. A system of unemployment compensation is primarily
designed to protect the worker against the ordinary periods of unemployment
attendant upon normal business.
HOW LONG SHALL THE WAITING PERIOD BE?
In every unemployment compensation system a waiting period is required
before benefit payments begin in order to
allow time for establishing the applicant's right to benefit and
to prevent exhaustion of the fund in paying compensation for very
short periods of unemployment. If no waiting period were exacted,
the minor ebbs and flows of employment in normal times would result
in large drains on the resources of the system for a type of unemployment
that causes relatively minor hardship to the worker. It should be
remembered, however, that the length of the waiting period greatly
affects the duration of benefits and that decision must be made
whether it is better policy to provide a longer waiting period and
to have a longer duration of benefits, or a shorter waiting period
which will inevitably result in the payment of benefits for a shorter
period of time to those unemployed. A few of the State laws require
a waiting period of 4 weeks a year; more commonly, a waiting period
of 3 weeks a year or 2 weeks within 13 weeks is required.
WHAT SHALL ELIGIBILITY FOR BENEFITS DEPEND UPON?
No unemployed worker covered by the law automatically receives benefits,
for in all unemployment compensation systems there are definite
eligibility requirements that each individual must meet before he
can receive benefits. First, in order to insure that expenditures
from the fund are not made to persons who are not regularly employed,
a worker, to be eligible for benefits, must have been employed in
an occupation covered by the law for a period of time which in the
State laws varies from 13 to 26 weeks a year, with New Hampshire
requiring 60 days. In the laws passed very recently, there is no
period of employment required, but an employee must have earned
wages equal to from 13 to 24 times his weekly benefit rate. The
Michigan law has a flat monetary wage requirement of $50 in each
of 3 quarters or a total of $250 in 3 quarters. Wisconsin has no
qualifying period but provides that an employee must have worked
4 weeks for an employer before he is eligible. Ohio is the only
State which has no employment qualification. In addition, all the
States except Ohio provide that the actual duration of benefits
shall bear a definite relationship to the period of prior employment
or earnings. Usually this relationship is expressed in terms of
a ratio of 1 week of benefit to 4 weeks of employment. But the same
result may be reached if total benefits paid in any year are expressed
as a percentage of prior earnings, and the necessity of keeping
records of actual weeks worked thus avoided. Secondly, when the
worker becomes unemployed, he must report at a specified office,
register as unemployed, and file a claim for benefits. Unless registration
is made in a controlled manner there will be no way of keeping continuous
supervision over the unemployment of the covered individual, and
benefits may be paid to persons who do not legitimately merit them.
In the third place, the unemployed person must also be able and
willing to work. The unemployment compensation plan is not designed
to provide benefits for sick or incapacitated individuals but is
concerned solely with the payment of benefits to individuals who,
though able and willing to work, are unable to find work through
no fault of their own.
In some way, too, the system must be administered so that working
standards are not broken down and the individual unemployed man
compelled to accept any work ?????at any wages. In every unemployment
compensation law both in this country and abroad, an individual
is permitted to refuse work offered him if it is not suitable. Suitable
work is usually defined as not below the standards prevailing for
similar work in the locality, or work which is not vacant because
of a strike or lockout or which would require an individual to join
a company union or refrain from joining or resign from a labor union
of his own choosing. Such provisions are incorporated in every State
law since they are prerequisites if a law is to be approved by the
Social Security Board.
SHALL ANY PERIODS OF INVOLUNTARY UNEMPLOYMENT GO UNCOMPENSATED?
Since an unemployment compensation system is primarily designed
to pay benefits to persons unemployed through no fault of their
own, certain periods of unemployment are not rightly the type to
be compensated. In this category is unemployment caused by a trade
dispute. Most State laws disqualify a person unemployed because
of a trade dispute in active progress in the establishment where
he is or was last employed. Trade disputes, however, often have
repercussions far beyond the limits of the factories directly involved,
causing workers indirectly affected to be involuntarily unemployed
and legitimately eligible for unemployment benefits.
In Great Britain and Germany persons unemployed after being discharged
for misconduct or having voluntarily quit their employment are penalized
by having benefits withheld for a period of time varying with the
severity of the offense. In American legislation, however, these
penalties are far more severe. The practice has varied from a flat
disqualification varying from 3 to 6 weeks in addition to the waiting
period and complete disqualification, to one depending on the severity
of the offense varying from 1, 2, and 3 to as much as 9 weeks in
addition to the waiting period. Some of the earlier State laws enacted
also provided that the duration of benefit shall be reduced also
by this same penalty period. The refusal of suitable employment
has also been penalized by a complete disqualification, a flat disqualification
of 3 or 4 weeks, or one varying from 1 to 5 weeks. But, in some
cases, these periods also act to shorten the maximum duration of
benefits. In Germany and Great Britain, refusal of suitable employment
disqualifies a person for 6 weeks.
HOW LARGE SHALL BENEFITS BE?
Unemployment compensation benefits are necessarily limited by the
amounts that are raised in contributions. Within this limit there
can be considerable variation in the benefit provisions. The benefit
may be paid in flat amounts or as a proportion of earnings. A high
rate may be paid for a short period or a low rate for a longer period,
but the chief determinant should always be that assistance be given
to the greatest number of unemployed with a minimum of discrimination
in favor of minority groups.
Benefits paid as flat amounts are geared to the wage of the lowest
paid worker and provide no more than a subsistence income. European
experimentation with this device has resulted in considerable modification
of the original flat rate, and, except in Great Britain, some adjustment
of benefit to wages is now the general rule. This latter procedure
enlists a larger interest on the part of the higher wage groups,
who would regard flat benefits mainly as a relief measure. The greater
spread as between the highest and lowest wages here as compared
with European countries also argues that benefits should be proportionate
to wages. It is almost universally proposed in this country that
benefits be a uniform percentage of former full?time wages. This
is considered the more equitable policy for all groups, since regional
differences in the cost of living are reflected in the varying wage
rates and the same degree of protection would be provided for all.
This rule, however, is usually modified by the stipulation of minimum
and maximum benefits. All but two State laws have a maximum of $15.
Some State laws have a flat minimum of $5, $7, or $7.50, while others
will pay three?fourths (or, in Colorado and New Hampshire, 70 percent)
of the full-time wage as a minimum if it amounts to less than the
figure otherwise set. Four provide no minimum at all.
Since unemployment compensation is designed to benefit the regularly
employed person, the benefit duration must bear a direct relationship
to the employment or employability of the person measured in terms
of previous employment or earnings, just as premiums in life insurance
are related to the degree of expectancy of life. Without this relationship,
the system assumes the characteristics of relief.
The rate of benefits may be low, permitting a longer duration, or
high with a shorter duration. If a low rate is adopted, it will
not yield a subsistence benefit for the lowwage groups, and their
payments will have to be supplemented from relief sources. On the
other hand, a high rate may reduce the incentive to seek employment.
With but few exceptions, the State laws have provided that the benefit
rate be placed at 50 percent of full-time weekly earnings With contributions
of 3 or even 4 percent of pay rolls, this is virtually the maximum
weekly rate of benefits which can be provided without unduly shortening
the duration of benefits.
All the 31 State laws which provide benefits for partially unemployed
persons do so on a basis different from that applicable to the totally
unemployed, even though, to the employee, unemployment means all
lost time involving decreased earnings whether it be in units of
hours, days, or weeks. If it is felt that the unemployment compensation
system shall provide an incentive to employees to take part?time
work, it seems reasonable that the sum of the benefits for partial
unemployment and the earnings for parttime work should be slightly
higher than the benefit for total unemployment. Compensating partial
unemployment at a rate lower than that for total unemployment also
acts as an incentive for employers to spread work by keeping a man
partially employed and thereby limiting benefit expenditures. Most
of the State laws provide that earnings for part-time work plus
benefit for partial unemployment shall exceed benefit for total
unemployment by $1, $2, or onesixth of part-time earnings. In 4
States the sum of earnings for partial employment and benefits is
limited to the amount that the unemployed individual would have
received if he had not worked at all.
European laws generally provide dependents' allowances. Such provision
is open to the objection that it introduces the element of need
with all its implications of investigation and administrative detail,
and it prevents relating benefits closely to contributions. The
theoretical problem involved is whether it is more socially desirable
to pay a slightly higher benefit rate to all unemployed persons,
or to redistribute the cost in such a way as to benefit to a higher
degree those persons having family responsibilities. This is a matter
of social policy on which the State must make its own decision.
Only one law in the United States provides for dependents' allowances.
In addition to formulating a benefit scale, it is necessary to indicate
the length of time for which benefits are paid or the total annual
amount allowed. This must be done not only to safeguard the resources
of the fund but in order to protect all the covered workers, so
that persons unemployed for an abnormally long period will not draw
benefits to the disadvantage of others who subsequently become unemployed.
Most of the State laws provide for a benefit duration of 15 or 16
weeks a year, or 15 or 16 times the weekly benefit amount.
Owing to the short duration of regular benefits that is possible,
a State may wish to provide more generously for those who have had
stable employment records over a period of years and have not previously
drawn upon the fund. Foreign experience indicates that a large proportion
of employees will draw no benefits for a number of years. These
employees will have an especially valid claim to the additional
benefits thus provided when, because of a depression or technological
change, they lose their jobs and are unable to find other work.
Thirteen of the State laws make some provision for additional benefits.
In more recently enacted laws, however, the States tend to drop
extended benefits for a longer normal duration, because of the administrative
difficulties attendant upon keeping records open for a long period
of time.
HOW SHALL UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION BE ADMINISTERED?
The tendency in administration is to endeavor to secure a nonpartisan
administration divorced from politics. Half of the State laws provide
for independent commissions which function to a large extent independent
of the State administration; the others are in a previously established
State agency, such as the Department of Labor. The fundamental problem
is the necessity for adequate personnel chosen on a merit basis
with sufficiently flexible powers to meet the needs of a new and
untried institutional development. The success or failure of the
entire system depends, too, upon how adequate the tie?up with public
employment offices is and how efficiently they function, for the
payment of benefits is always made through the public employment
offices and is the alternative to obtaining employment. In this
connection, the public employment offices will have to be expanded
both in number and staff to cover the entire country and the personnel
trained to handle the new task s of benefit payments.
Provision for State or local advisory councils composed of employer
and employee representatives and of the representatives of the public
generally will be of great assistance to the administrative agency
in formulating policy and assuring impartiality and neutrality in
the solution of problems that arise.
General flexible provisions are necessary for the settlement of
benefit claims. Usually, claims for benefits are first filed at
the local employment office or other designated agency, and disputed
claims are heard locally, with opportunity given for a fair hearing
before an impartial tribunal. Unless an appeal from such decision
is filed within a short period of time after delivery of notification,
such decision is final. Usually a further appeal to the administrative
agency or to an independent board of review is provided. On points
of law, a further appeal is allowed to the civil courts. All persons
delegated to handle claims or appeals would be given authority to
administer oaths, take depositions, certify to official acts, issue
subpenas, and compel the attendance of witnesses and the production
of necessary papers, books, and records. But, in general, claims
are conducted in a nonlegalistic manner in order to provide adequate
protection to the unemployed worker unused to the technicalities
of legal procedure. Adequate penalties are also provided in each
law in order to protect the employee's rights and benefits, and
to guard against misrepresentation or fraud on the part of both
employers and employees.
Unemployment compensation must be regarded as only one aspect of
the approach to the solution of the unemployment problem. By the
passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 and the establishment
of 36 State unemployment compensation systems, the United States
has taken its position as a forward?looking country, recognizing
unemployment as one of the most serious ills facing modern economic
society and talong definite steps against it. The problem is of
course, broader than that of providing unemployment compensation
comprehending as it does the inherent factors in our Industrial
system which cause unemployment, as well as the alleviation of distress
which goes beyond the limits of unemployment compensation. The facts
that 35 States and the District of Columbia had passed laws by the
end of 1936 and that there is every indication that this number
will be greatly increased are evidences of the earnestness and the
high endeavor with which the program is going forward.
Bibliography
The reader will find material for further reading in the following
references, from which much of the foregoing discussion has been
derived
I-
Bakke, Edward Wight, The Unemployed Man; New York, E. P. Dutton
and Co., Inc., 1934, 308 pp.
Butler, Harold Beresford, Unemployment Problems in the United States;
International Labor Office, Studies and Reports, Series C, No. 17;
World Peace Foundation pamphlet, 1931, 112 pp.
Calkins, Clinch, Some Folks Won't Work; New York, Harcourt, Brace
and Co., Inc., 1930, 202 pp.
Douglas, Paul H., and Director, Aaron, The Problem of Unemployment;
New York, The Macmillan Co., 1931, 505 pp.
Haber, William, Unemployment, fl Problem of Insecurity; (An outline
for a course of study); Affiliated summer schools for women workers
in industry, 218 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y., 1931, 87 pp.
Security or the Dole? Public Affairs Pamphlet No. 4, 1936. Public
Affairs Committee, National Press Building, Washington, D. C., 32
pp.
Unemployment--An International Problem (Report by a Study Group
of Members of the Royal Institute of International Affairs); London,
Oxford University Press, 1935, 496 pp.
Williams, James Michael, Human 4spects of Unemployment and Relief;
University of North Carolina Press, 1933, 235 pp.
II-
Douglas, Paul H., and Director, Aaron, The Problem of Unemployment,
New York, The Macmillan Co., 1931, 505 pp., chapter XXVIII, pp.
484-497.
Feldman, Herman, The Regularization of Employment; New York, Harper
and Brothers, 1925, 437 pp., chapter XV, pp. 365-404.
Gilson, Mary B., Unemployment Insurance; Chicago (University of
Chicago Public Policy Pamphlets), 1933, 30 pp.
Harper, Elsie D., Out of a Job; New York, Woman's Press, 600 Lexington
Ave., 1931, 52 pp.
Report of the Ohio Commission on Unemployment Insurance; Columbus,
F. J. Heer Printing Co., 1932, 2 vols., part 1.
III-
Bakke, Edward Wight, Insurance or Dole?; New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1935, 280 pp.
Carroll, Mollie Ray, Unemployment Insurance in Germany; Washington,
Brookings Institution, 2nd edition, 1930, 140 pp.
Gilson, Mary Barnett, Unemployment Insurance in Great Britain; New
York, Industrial Relations Counselors, Inc., 1931, 560 pp.
Hill, A. C. C., Jr., and Lubin, Isador, The British flttack on Unemployment;
Washington, D. C., Brookings Institution, 1934, 325 pp.
Industrial Relations Counselors, Inc., fln Historical Basis for
Unemployment Insurance; Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press,
1934, 306 pp.
IV-
Report to the President of the Committee on Economic Security; United
States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1935, 74 pp.
Stewart, Bryce M., Unemployment Benefits in the United States; New
York, Industrial Relations Counselors, Inc., 1930, 727 pp.
Witte, Edwin E., An Historical Account of Unemployment Insurance
in the Social Security Act, in "Law and Contemporary Problems,"
January 1936, vol. 111, no. 1, pp. 157?169.
Social Security in America: The Factual Background of the Social
Security flct as Presented by a Summary of Staff Reports to the
Committee on Economic Security; United States Government Printing
Office, Washington, 1937, part I.
V-
A Brief Explanation of the Social Security flct; Social Security
Board, Informational Service Circular No. 1, March 1937.
Burns, Eveline, Toward Social Security; New York, McGraw?Hill Book
Co., 1936, 269 pp.
Douglas, Paul H., Social Security in the United States; New York,
McGrawHill Book Co., 1936, 384 pp.
Social Security in America: The Factual Background of the Social
Security .' flct as Presented by a Summary of Staff Reports to the
Committee on Economic Security; United States Government Printing
Office, Washington, 1937, part I.
VI-
Analysis of State Unemployment Compensation Laws, January 1, 1937;
Social Security Board, Publication No. 13, 23 pp.
Douglas, Paul H., Standards of Unemployment Insurance; Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1932, 251 pp.
Draft Bills for State Unemployment Compensation of Pooled Fund and
Employer Reserve flccount Types; Social Security Board, January
1937, 151 pp.
Hansen, Alvin, and others, Program for Unemployment Insurance and
Relief in the United States; Minneapolis, University of Minnesota
Press, 1934, 201 pp.
Law and Contemporary Problems; January 1936, Vol. III, No. 1, Duke
University School of Law, Quarterly Publication, 172 pp.
Social Security in America: The Factual Background of the Social
Security Act as Presented by a Summary of Staff Reports to the Committee
on Economic Security; United States Government Printing Office,
Washington, 1937, part I.
|
|
