The U.S. Needs a New Unemployment Insurance System
The Covid-19 crisis has exposed crippling defects in America’s unemployment-insurance system. The most essential short-term fix is to extend and adjust the emergency benefits that expired at the end of July. In due course, though, the system needs more than just the latest in a years-long series of ad hoc patches. It requires comprehensive reform — to assure workers of adequate protection, promote employment, insulate the economy against protracted downturns and spread the cost more equitably.
The current system is a complicated federal-state partnership. Both levels of government collect taxes...