Ilya Marritz
Ilya Marritz covers business for WNYC.
Unemployment Way Up in New York State
Thursday, August 28, 2008
New York, NY –
Unemployment has shot up in New York State as the economy has cooled down. And a new analysis by the Fiscal Policy Institute finds New York is doing a poor job of helping the unemployed.
The Institute's James Parrott says the state hasn't made a cost-of-living adjustment to benefits since the year 2000, and that actually does harm to an economy in a downturn.
PARROTT: Here's an automatic stabilizer feature that should characterize an unemployment insurance system so that as unemployment rises, workers receive unemployment insurance benefits and that helps support demand and spending in the economy.
REPORTER: Parrott also says New York's unemployment insurance trust fund is among the least solvent in the nation, second only to Michigan's. He predicts the fund will go bust by the end of the year and New York will have to borrow from the federal government, if lawmakers in Albany don't act soon.
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