North Carolina has country's smallest unemployment benefits but a $3 billion fund
RALEIGH -- People without jobs in North Carolina receive some of the lowest unemployment benefits in the country and receive payments for a shorter time than in nearly every other state, according to a new report.
A 2013 state law cut both the size and duration of unemployment benefits in North Carolina. Lawmakers said they made the change because the trust fund that pays for the program had a $2 billion deficit.
The fund has recovered and had $3.17 billion in the bank as of December, but that was a result of “a radical reduction in the generosity of your program to the claimants,” said Wayne Vroman of The Urban Institute, a Washington-based economic think tank that studied the state’s unemployment insurance program.
Vroman presented his findings Wednesday to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Unemployment Insurance. The left-leaning N.C. Justice Center wrote to the committee chairs in December to ask that Vroman be invited to speak.
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