United States 1932

Synopsis

A landmark in the development of American social insurance, the Wisconsin Unemployment Insurance Act of 1932 had roots in the social and political reform movements of the early twentieth century. Conceived and promoted by John R. Commons and his students at the University of Wisconsin, the law was an expression of their distinctive approach to labor legislation, which stressed the prevention of social ills such as unemployment through the creation of financial incentives, in this case for steady, full-time work. Their first campaigns, in 1921 and 1923, failed, ironically, because Wisconsin employers remained skeptical of their arguments. With the onset of the depression in 1930, Commons's students made their bill more conservative to blunt employer resistance and mobilized public interest in unemployment insurance as an antipoverty measure. The bill ultimately passed the legislature in early 1932 and went into effect in 1934. Its immediate effect was to...