IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedcec/98962.html

How Insured Are Workers Against Unemployment? Unemployment Insurance and the Distribution of Liquid Wealth

Author

Abstract

In this Economic Commentary, we analyze the relationship between unemployment insurance (UI) recipiency and insurance by examining the wealth distribution of workers who have been through an unemployment spell. We focus on the net liquid wealth gap between recipients and nonrecipients of UI along the income distribution of the unemployed. Using recent data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation at the individual level, we estimate that UI recipients at the bottom half of the income distribution tend to have higher median net liquid wealth than nonrecipients, putting nonrecipients in a potentially vulnerable economic position during periods of unemployment.

Suggested Citation

  • Andre Luduvice & Anaya Truss-Williams, 2024. "How Insured Are Workers Against Unemployment? Unemployment Insurance and the Distribution of Liquid Wealth," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2024(16), pages 1-8, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcec:98962
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-ec-202416
    Note: Replication codes for this paper are available at https://github.com/avdluduvice/LuduviceTruss-Williams_UI.; See appendix.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-ec-202416
    File Function: Persistent link with full text.
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.clevelandfed.org/-/media/project/clevelandfedtenant/clevelandfedsite/publications/economic-commentary/2024/ec-202416-unemployment-insurance-and-distribution-of-liquid-wealth/ec202416-appendices.pdf
    File Function: Appendix.
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26509/frbc-ec-202416?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Auray, Stéphane & Fuller, David L. & Lkhagvasuren, Damba, 2019. "Unemployment insurance take-up rates in an equilibrium search model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 1-31.
    2. Serdar Birinci & Kurt See, 2023. "Labor Market Responses to Unemployment Insurance: The Role of Heterogeneity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 388-430, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Griffy, Benjamin & Masters, Adrian & You, Kai, 2025. "Unemployment insurance and job polarization," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Martin Gervais & Roozbeh Hosseini & Lawrence Warren, 2025. "Unemployment Insurance, Wage Pass-Through, and Endogenous Take-Up," Working Papers 25-59, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Albertini, Julien & Fairise, Xavier & Terriau, Anthony, 2023. "Unemployment insurance, recalls, and experience rating," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    4. Laura Salisbury, 2024. "Union Army Widows and the Historical Take-Up of Social Benefits," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic History of American Inequality: New Evidence and Perspectives, pages 123-164, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Cai, Zhifeng & Heathcote, Jonathan, 2023. "The Great Resignation and Optimal Unemployment Insurance," CEPR Discussion Papers 18526, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Chao, Ying H., 2025. "A quantitative analysis of relaxing UI eligibility requirements," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    7. Ruediger Bachmann & Jinhui Bai & Minjoon Lee & Fudong Zhang, 2020. "The Welfare and Distributional Effects of Fiscal Volatility: a Quantitative Evaluation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 127-153, October.
    8. Serdar Birinci & Kurt Gerrard See, 2018. "How Should Unemployment Insurance vary over the Business Cycle?," 2018 Meeting Papers 69, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Veronica Minaya & Brendan Moore & Judith Scott-Clayton, 2020. "The Effect of Job Displacement on College Enrollment: Evidence from Ohio," NBER Working Papers 27694, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Serdar Birinci & Kurt See, 2024. "The Implications of Labor Market Heterogeneity for Unemployment Insurance Design," Working Papers 2024-026, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised 23 Jan 2026.
    11. Xie, Zoe, 2019. "Delayed collection of unemployment insurance in recessions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 274-295.
    12. Stephane Auray & Aurelien Eyquem, 2024. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance in a THANK Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 53, pages 173-193, July.
    13. Marta Lachowska & Isaac Sorkin & Stephen A. Woodbury, 2022. "Firms and Unemployment Insurance Take-up," NBER Working Papers 30266, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. W. Similan Rujiwattanapong, 2022. "Unemployment Insurance and Labour Productivity over the Business Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 196-223, October.
    15. Stéphane Auray & David L. Fuller, 2020. "Eligibility, experience rating, and unemployment insurance take‐up," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), pages 1059-1107, July.
    16. Birinci, Serdar & Faria-e-Castro, Miguel & See, Kurt, 2026. "Dissecting the great retirement boom," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    17. Birinci, Serdar, 2025. "Comment on “How to fund unemployment insurance with informality and false claims: Evidence from Senegal” by Ndiaye, Herkenhoff, Cissé, Dell’Acqua, and Mbaye," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    18. Francesco Spadafora, 2022. "Don’t let me down: unemployment insurance in the United States," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 673, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Robert E. Hall & Marianna Kudlyak, 2022. "Why Has the US Economy Recovered So Consistently from Every Recession in the Past 70 Years?," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 1-55.
    20. Brendan Moore & Judith Scott-Clayton, 2019. "The Firm's Role in Displaced Workers' Earnings Losses," NBER Working Papers 26525, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedcec:98962. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: 4D Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbclus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.