The United States has 53 separate unemployment insurance systems. How can that be when there are only 50 states? The remaining three unemployment insurance systems are found in Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Each system is separate from one another; each system pays different benefits; each system has been funded separately. What that means is that some workers in low-benefit states can get half what the same type of worker gets in a high-benefit state. If that sounds unfair, consider this: some states have built up sufficient reserves to make it through this recession. Other states have seen their funds run dry.
ProPublica has an article and interactive infographic showing which states are in trouble, which states are not, and which states will be in trouble in six months. From their article:
The unemployment insurance system is in crisis. A record 20 million Americans collected unemployment benefits last year, and so far twenty-five states have run out of funds and been forced to borrow from federal government, raise taxes, or cut benefits. In many other states the situation is deteriorating fast. Using near real-time data on state revenues and the benefits they pay out, we estimate how long state trust funds will hold up.
Be sure to click on your state, district, or territory on the right side of their interactive infographic to see how it is doing.
via ProPublica : Unemployment Insurance Tracker
