Add the insolvent and still hemorrhaging Unemployment Insurance Reserve Fund ? and a looming $50 million in annual interest payments due the feds ? to the list of economic challenges facing the Walker administration. Due to the high number of applicants and a failure to salt away enough money during the good times, Wisconsin since February 2009 has been forced to borrow nearly $1.5 billion from the federal government to cover weekly benefits for the unemployed.
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, UW-Madison professor of public affairs and applied economics