Actuarial Aspects of Unemployment Insurance

Unemployment insurance is a program which provides, in accordance with a definite formula, indemnity against wage loss resulting from involuntary unemployment. The best known examples of such programs up to now have been the 51 State unemployment insurance programs and the Federal Railroad Unemployment Insurance program. As a result of recent collective bargaining agreements, the field has been expanded considerably by the introduction of the guaranteed wage or supplementary unemployment benefit programs. Up to now, unemployment insurance programs were almost entirely government-operated. Now, private corporations are beginning to play a role in unemployment insurance analogous to the one they have had over the past years in the field of retirement pensions.