Financial Transactions of the Federal Unemployment Account (Reed Act Loan Fund) in the Unemployment Trust Fund Through June 30, 1969 1/ The first credit, made in fiscal year 1955 and credited on December 23, 1954, represents excess of Federal unemployment tax collections over employment security expenses during fiscal year 1954. 2/ The first credit in fiscal year 1956, made July 1, 1955, represents excess during fiscal year 1955. The second credit, made at the end of fiscal year 1956 represents the excess during fiscal year 1956 needed to bring the balance to statutory limit of $200,000,000. 468,165,242 496,417,984 6/546,087,460 3/ Advance to Oregon of $14,000,000 in April 1958 not legal under Oregon laws and returned June 13, 1958. Alaska received an additional $2,635,000. 4/ BES administrative expenses of $6,078,600 deducted during fiscal year 1958 per Public Law 85-67. जेणे Same amount credited to account in fiscal year 1959 per Comptroller General Decision No. Bl35956, dated July 1, 1958. Reflects adjustment of $506.86 in 1961; $127.65 in 1965. Excess collections for fiscal year 1968, to be credited as of July 1, 1969, of $3,000,898 raises total cash balance as of that date to $549,088,358. Estimated Amounts of Title IX Reed Act Funds as of May 31, 1969 (The following departmental report from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was received by the committee:) DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, Hon. WILBUR D. MILLS, DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: I take the liberty of submitting this report in support of H.R. 12625, a bill with the short title "Employment Security Amendments of 1969," which is designed to carry out the recommendations of the President made in his Message on Unemployment Insurance of July 8, 1969. We believe that this Department's experience under the Social Security program has a bearing on the proposals in this bill. H.R. 12625 would, among other things, (1) extend unemployment insurance protection to additional employees, including many who are vulnerable to layoffs; (2) strengthen the financing of the program by raising the taxable wage base by steps to $6,000 and providing for periodic review of the adequacy of the financing; (3) make the program more responsive to major changes in economic conditions by extending the length of time during which benefits are paid during a period of high national unemployment; (4) end the restrictions imposed by half the States on benefit payments to unemployed workers being trained for enhanced employability; (5) relate an individual's eligibility for benefits to a minimum of 15 weeks' employment; and (6) eliminate the practice in two States of paying benefits to workers directly engaged in a strike. As you know, this Department has had long experience in administering the Social Security program-a program somewhat comparable to the unemployment insurance program (formerly administered by predecessor agencies of this Department) in that both are social insurance programs which provide economic protection for workers throughout the Nation against loss of family income as the result of certain contingencies. We believe that the successful experience of the Social Security program in solving the problems of achieving almost universal coverage is particularly relevant to the provisions of H.R. 12625 that would broaden unemployment insurance coverage. The bill would extend unemployment insurance protection, effective January 1, 1972, to about 5.3 million additional workers. About half of these additional workers would be covered by extension of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act to the following: employers with less than four employees but with a quarterly payroll of at least $300 (1,600,000 workers); farmers employing four or more workers in each of the 20 weeks (400,000 workers); workers in agricultural processing activities (200,000 workers); and salesmen, delivery tradesmen, and others who are not currently defined as employees (200,000 workers). The other workers to whom the bill would extend unemployment insurance protection would be covered by requiring States to provide protection for workers in nonprofit charitable and nonprofit higher educational institutions with four or more workers in each of 20 weeks (1,800,000 workers), and workers in State hospitals and institutions of higher education (600,000 workers). Employers of the 2.4 million workers in these two categories could choose to either pay contributions to the State unemployment fund or to reimburse the fund for benefits attributable to employment for the institution. As to experience under the Social Security program, it has long been recognized that the program's objective of preventing dependency can best be achieved if Social Security coverage is as universal as possible. Prior to the enactment of the 1950 Social Security legislation, the Social Security program covered roughly the same employment as the Federal taxing provisions of the unemployment insurance program. This and subsequent legislation have expanded Social Security coverage so that now almost all regularly employed workers are covered. (The major groups not covered are under staff retirement systems, and include most Federal employees and about 30 percent of State and local government employees.) These extensions of Social Security coverage have greatly improved the effectiveness of Social Security, providing basic retirement, disability, and survivorship protection for more than 9 out of 10 workers and their families, and enabling this protection to follow a worker who goes to a new job. We believe that the proposed expansion of the coverage of the unemployment |