Our October edition of Numbers You Need is now out, providing a snapshot of economic and budget trends in Oklahoma through monthly data on jobs, inflation, public benefits, and state revenues, as well as the most recent quarterly data on building permits and an annual update on the poverty rate. Read the rest of this entry »
Across the nation, the deep, prolonged economic recession is putting great strains on state Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs. Oklahoma is hardly immune from these challenges, but our problems are less severe than elsewhere. The combination of having entered the recession with our UI program in good fiscal health, the relative mildness of the downturn in Oklahoma, and the Legislature’s willingness to do what needed to be done to get the boost of available federal stimulus dollars should help allow the state’s UI program to continue to provide a temporary source of income until employment prospects improve.
As everyone knows, the June jobs report was brutal – the nation lost an additional 467,000 jobs, the unemployment rate reached 9.5 percent, and the total number of unemployed Americans hit 14.7 million, an all-time high. State-level figures for June have not yet been released, but May did bring relatively good news for Oklahoma, as the state’s 0.1 percent increase in the unemployment rate (from 6.2 percent to 6.3 percent) was far less severe than in prior months or in the nation as a whole. Still, the state saw its number of unemployed hit 111,700 for the month, an increase of nearly 50,000 compared to a year prior. The unemployment rate has now topped 7.5 percent in 19 counties, led by Hughes County, whose jobless rate reached 10.9 percent in May. The number of Oklahomans claiming Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits rose to just under 50,000 in May, a 208 percent increase compared to May 2008. Almost 10,000 long-term unemployed workers in the state who have already exhausted their initial period of UI eligibility have now become eligible for an additional 13 weeks of benefits.
Such developments are putting enormous stress on state unemployment insurance systems. Every state has an Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund which collects revenues and pays out benefits. When fewer workers are employed, states pay out more in benefits while taking in less in UI tax collections. Yet while Oklahoma’s Trust Fund balance has declined over the past year, we are in a much stronger situation than most states.
